Elucidating mechanisms of gene restoration

孟德尔的遗传定律在上个世纪的大部分时间里指导着我们对古典遗传学和分子遗传学的探索。根据这些规律，遗传性状独立分离，并稳定地代代相传。尽管存在明显的稳定继承法则例外，但所有例外都有相对明确的定义。我们最近证明，与HOTHEAD基因座隐性突变等位基因纯合的拟南芥植物可以遗传亲本染色体基因组中缺失的DNA序列信息。我们发表的数据表明，整个核基因组的序列都容易发生变化，编码区和非编码区都受到影响。另外的研究结果表明，删除的序列可以准确地恢复，并表明该过程是模板导向的。毫不奇怪，这些发现极具争议。

Mendel's laws of inheritance have guided our exploration of classical as well as molecular genetics through much of the last century. According to these laws genetic traits segregate independently and are inherited stably from one generation to the next. Although notable exceptions to the law of stable inheritance exist, all have been relatively well defined. We have recently demonstrated that Arabidopsis plants homozygous for recessive mutant alleles of the HOTHEAD locus can inherit DNA sequence information that is absent from the chromosomal genome of their parents. Our published data suggest that sequences throughout the nuclear genome are susceptible to change and that both coding and non-coding regions are affected. Additional research results demonstrate that deleted sequences can be accurately restored and suggest that the process is template-directed. Not surprisingly, these findings are extremely controversial.