eLapin

Mice inherit more than just DNA
老鼠的遺傳物質不只有DNA

Mice
RNA can be heredity molecule. Minoo Rassoulzadegan and colleagues working at Inserm, a health-research institute in Nice, in France( the nearby University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis ) have found a gene in mice that likely express characteristics that are not encoded in the DNA which it received from its parents. The gene is called Kit and mice with a mutant Kit gene have white spots on their tails and feet.


The research team suggested this phenomenon was similar to paramutation, a heritable epigenetic change investigated most thoroughly in plants. Paramutated offspring also resulted when they crossed heterozygotes with wild-type mice, regardless of the sex combination.