Mechanism Of Inheritance Research Articles

The inheritance of alternative nest architectural traditions in stingless bees

The transmission of complex behavior and culture in humans has long been attributed to advanced forms of social learning,1,2 which play a crucial role in our technological advancement.3 While similar phenomena of behavioral traditions and cultural inheritance have been observed in animals,1,2,4,5,6 including in primates,7 whales,8 birds,9 and even insects,10 the underlying mechanisms enabling the persistence of such animal traditions, particularly in insects, are less well understood. This study introduces pioneering evidence of enduring architectural traditions in the stingless bee Scaptotrigona depilis, which are maintained without any evidence for social learning. We demonstrate that S.depilis exhibits two distinct nest architectures, comprising either helicoidal or flat, stacked horizontal combs, which are transmitted across generations through stigmergy11,12,13,14,15,16,17-an environmental feedback mechanism whereby the presence of the existing comb structures guides subsequent construction behaviors-thereby leading to a form of environmental inheritance.18,19,20 Cross-fostering experiments further show that genetic factors or prior experience does not drive the observed variation in nest architecture. Moreover, the experimental introduction of corkscrew dislocations within the combs prompted helicoidal building, confirming the use of stigmergic building rules. At a theoretical level, we establish that the long-term equilibrium of building in the helicoidal pattern fits with the expectations of a two-state Markov chain model. Overall, our findings provide compelling evidence for the persistence of behavioral traditions in an insect, based on a simple mechanism of environmental inheritance and stigmergic interactions, without requiring any sophisticated learning mechanism, thereby expanding our understanding of how traditions can be maintained in non-human species.

Exploring the Interconnected Mechanisms of Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance

It is estimated that around 70% of all adults around the world have faced trauma in their lives (Benjet et al., 2016). Trauma can cause individuals to undergo epigenetic changes which can lead to health complications in the future (Alegría-Torres et al., 2011). Epigenetics is defined as the study of molecular modifications to DNA through DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs that can regulate gene expression independent of DNA sequences (Li, 2021). New evidence suggests that epigenetic changes may be passed down to offspring. However, the exact pathway for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance to occur is unknown. While existing theories, including intrauterine programming, miRNA-mediated pathways, and genomic imprinting, offer possible pathways, none can fully account for the spectrum of transgenerational inheritance. This paper will review the three models proposed and will explore the possibility of their combined influence on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Exploring epigenetic mechanisms can help offer potential intervention points to relieve the negative impact of trauma on several generations.

MiRNA Might Mediate Intergenerational Inheritance of Enhanced Synaptic Plasticity by Alterations of Gene Expression

In a previous paper, intergenerational inheritance of changes in synaptic plasticity, which was related to the increased level of microRNA212/132, was found in mice. A hypothesis about a specific mechanism is made that the increased miRNA212/132 can transfer from adult male mice’s hippocampus to their sperms through the circulatory system. Then the miRNA changes the gene’s expression level related to mouse embryos’ neurodevelopment to alter synaptic plasticity. This hypothesis indicates the connection between epigenetics and neuroscience. This work comes up with several experiments to verify the hypothesis made and other possible precise mechanisms for intergenerational inheritance of enhanced synaptic plasticity in mice.

Abstract IA017: Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA): Cancer’s dynamic circular genome

Abstract Human genes are arranged on 23 pairs of chromosomes, but in cancer, tumor-promoting genes and regulatory elements can free themselves from chromosomes and relocate to circular, extrachromosomal pieces of DNA (ecDNA). ecDNA poses one of the greatest challenges for cancer patients, affecting children and adults and women and men, with a wide variety of cancer types. Although ecDNA was first observed more than 50 years ago, its critical importance has only recently come to light. ecDNA, because of its non-chromosomal inheritance, drives high-copy number oncogene amplification and enables tumors to evolve their genomes rapidly, contributing to treatment resistance and shorter survival for patients. Furthermore, the circular ecDNA architecture fundamentally alters gene regulation and transcription. In this talk, I will discuss recent collaborative discoveries that highlight how the higher order, spatial organization of ecDNA, and its mechanism of inheritance, contributes to aggressive tumorigenesis, accelerated evolution, and treatment resistance. Citation Format: Paul Mischel. Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA): Cancer’s dynamic circular genome [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Translating Cancer Evolution and Data Science: The Next Frontier; 2023 Dec 3-6; Boston, Massachusetts. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(3 Suppl_2):Abstract nr IA017.

Research on the Integration Mechanism of Non-legacy Culture Inheritance and Creative-entrepreneurship Education of Higher Vocational and Technical Schools

The state attaches great importance to the construction of traditional culture and the development of vocational education, emphasizing the need to build a socialist cultural power and improve the national cultural soft power. In terms of vocational education, it is proposed to improve vocational education and deepen the integration of production and education and school-enterprise collaboration. This paper integrates the non-legacy culture into the creative-entrepreneurship education of higher vocational and technical schools. The non-legacy culture is conducive to stimulate the creative-entrepreneurship consciousness of higher vocational college students, cultivate the creative-entrepreneurship quality of college students and the creative-entrepreneurship spirit of college students. The technical advantages of interdisciplinary collaboration of higher vocational and technical schools and the environmental advantages of in-depth collaboration between schools and companies help to inherit the non-legacy culture. Higher vocational and technical schools inherit the non-legacy culture through creative-entrepreneurship environment, creative-entrepreneurship courses, creative-entrepreneurship practice, creative-entrepreneurship platform and creative-entrepreneurship team, so that higher vocational and technical schools can form a sustainable cultural force and realize the inheritance and development of non-legacy culture.

Genetic and non-genetic drug resistance: Darwin or Lamarck?

Drug resistance represents a major limitation to the long-term efficacy of anti-cancer treatments. The commonly accepted view is that the selection of inheritable genetic mechanisms governs the development of secondary resistance. However, compelling evidence suggests an important role for adaptive cell plasticity and non-genetic mechanisms in the development of therapy resistance. The two phenomena are not mutually exclusive and the interplay between genetic and non-genetic mechanisms may affect tumor evolution during treatment. A broader characterization of the genetic and non-genetic mechanisms of drug resistance may pave the way for more precise and effective therapeutic strategies to overcome resistance.

Equine common variable immunodeficiency: Lessons from 100 clinical cases

SummaryThe clinical manifestation of recurrent fevers and infections alerts the clinician to the possibility of an underlying immunodeficiency. Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) in the horse is a rare late‐onset, nonfamilial immunological disorder of B cell depletion and/or dysfunction with resultant inadequate antibody production. The most common clinical presentations in horses with CVID are recurrent upper and/or lower respiratory infections, meningitis and/or ataxia, cholangiohepatitis, infectious colitis, infectious dermatitis and severe gastrointestinal parasitism. Immune‐mediated and lymphoproliferative conditions are additional clinical features. The diagnosis of CVID in horses is based on a persistent hypogammaglobulinaemia primarily caused by a serum IgG concentration below 10.00 g/L in at least two different measurements, often accompanied by a serum IgM concentration below 0.50 g/L. Most horses with CVID show a persistent peripheral blood B cell distribution below 6% of total circulating lymphocytes, indicating severe B cell paucity or depletion, but the B cell distribution can be within the normal reference interval. Post‐mortem findings add diagnostic information about the distribution of B and T cells in lymphoid tissues. Clinical management of horses with immunodeficiency is intense and expensive, and these factors weigh on the difficult decision of elective euthanasia. To date, no genetic mutation has been identified in horse patients with CVID, and the large number of breeds of single‐affected individuals in a same herd or immediate lineage from various parts of the United States and the world do not point at an obvious inheritable mechanism of disease or environmental risk factors. This article describes the clinical and immunological findings in 100 equine cases, and comparisons with the disease in human patients.

Research on the Inheritance and Development of National Music Culture

This paper studies the inheritance and development of national music culture. As a unique form of music, folk music is associated with specific ethnic, regional and cultural backgrounds. However, due to historical and cultural reasons, music culture in many nations is facing serious challenges, including loss, degradation and forgetting. This paper analyzes the main problems in the inheritance of Chinese national music culture, including the degradation of traditional culture, the loss of the young generation and the lack of inheritance mechanism. In terms of development, this paper discusses the challenges of modernization and cultural integration faced by national music culture. Finally, this paper puts forward some solutions, including strengthening traditional culture education, promoting the integration and innovation of traditional music and modern music, and establishing an effective inheritance mechanism. Through these efforts, we can protect and inherit the national music culture, and lay the foundation for its future development.

Uncovering the inheritance mechanisms of yield and oil content in castor (Ricinus communis L.): a 21-generation study

Uncovering the inheritance mechanisms of yield and oil content in castor (Ricinus communis L.): a 21-generation study

Mechanisms of Epigenetic Inheritance in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that causes debilitating functional impairment in patients. Observations from survivors of traumatic historical events solidify that this disease is not only associated with personal experiences but can also be inherited from familial traumas. Over the past decades, researchers have focused on epigenetic inheritance to understand how responses to adverse experiences can be passed down to future generations. This review aims to present recent findings on epigenetic markers related to PTSD and research in the intergenerational inheritance of trauma. By understanding the information, we hope that epigenetic markers can act as biochemical measurements for future clinical practice.

Father-to-daughter transmission in late-onset OTC deficiency: an underestimated mechanism of inheritance of an X-linked disease.

Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency (OTCD) is an X-linked urea cycle disorder characterized by acute hyperammonemic episodes. Hemizygous males are usually affected by a severe/fatal neonatal-onset form or, less frequently, by a late-onset form with milder disease course, depending on the residual enzymatic activity. Hyperammonemia can occur any time during life and patients could remain non- or mis-diagnosed due to unspecific symptoms. In heterozygous females, clinical presentation varies based on the extent of X chromosome inactivation. Maternal transmission in X-linked disease is the rule, but in late-onset OTCD, due to the milder phenotype of affected males, paternal transmission to the females is possible. So far, father-to-daughter transmission of OTCD has been reported only in 4 Japanese families. We identified in 2 Caucasian families, paternal transmission of late-onset OTCD with severe/fatal outcome in affected males and 1 heterozygous female. Furthermore, we have reassessed the pedigrees of other published reports in 7 additional families with evidence of father-to-daughter inheritance of OTCD, identifying and listing the family members for which this transmission occurred. Our study highlights how the diagnosis and pedigree analysis of late-onset OTCD may represent a real challenge for clinicians. Therefore, the occurrence of paternal transmission in OTCD should not be underestimated, due to the relevant implications for disease inheritance and risk of recurrence.

B chromosome and its non-Mendelian inheritance in Atractylodes lancea.

Supernumerary B chromosomes contribute to intraspecific karyotypic variation. B chromosomes have been detected in more than 2000 organisms; they possess unique and diverse features, including non-Mendelian inheritance. Here, we report one or more B chromosomes in the gynodioecious plant Atractylodes lancea. Among 54 A. lancea lines, 0-2 B chromosomes were detected in both hermaphroditic and female plants, with the B chromosomes appearing as DAPI-bright regions within the nuclei. Genomic in situ hybridization revealed that the B chromosomes had no conserved A chromosome DNA sequences, confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization probed with independently dissected B chromosomes. In male meiosis, the B chromosome did not pair with an A chromosome and was therefore eliminated; accordingly, only 20.1% and 18.6% of these univalent B chromosomes remained at the end of meiosis for the 1B lines of KY17-148 and KY17-118, respectively. However, we also found that B chromosomes were transmitted from male parents in 40.8%-44.2% and 47.2% of the next generation; although these transmission rates from male parents were not essentially different from Mendelian inheritance (0.5), the transmission of gametes carrying B chromosomes increased through fertilization or seed development. B chromosomes were transmitted from three of four 1B female parents to 64.3%-92.6% of the next generation, suggesting B chromosome accumulation. We propose that the B chromosome of A. lancea has a specific sequence and persists via non-Mendelian inheritance from female parents. Overall, A. lancea, with its unique characteristics, is a promising model for understanding the structure, evolution, and mechanism of non-Mendelian inheritance of B chromosomes.

Smartization Mechanism of Music Inheritance of Bourau in Guangxi under the Background of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection

Smartization Mechanism of Music Inheritance of Bourau in Guangxi under the Background of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection

Intergenerational effects of ocean temperature variation: Early life benefits are short-lived in threespine stickleback.

Current climate change models predict an increase in temperature variability and extreme events such as heatwaves, and organisms need to cope with consequent changes to environmental variation. Non-genetic inheritance mechanisms can enable parental generations to prime their offspring's abilities to acclimate to environmental change-but they may also be deleterious. When parents are exposed to predictable environments, intergenerational plasticity can lead to better offspring trait performance in matching environments. Alternatively, parents exposed to variable or unpredictable environments may use plastic bet-hedging strategies to adjust the phenotypic variance among offspring. Here, we used a model species, the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), to test whether putatively adaptive intergenerational effects can occur in response to shifts in environmental variation as well as to shifts in environmental mean, and whether parents employ plastic bet-hedging strategies in response to increasing environmental variation. We used a full-factorial, split-clutch experiment with parents and offspring exposed to three temperature regimes: constant, natural variation, and increased variation. We show that within-generation exposure to increased temperature variation reduces growth of offspring, but having parents that were exposed to natural temperature variation during gametogenesis may offset some early-life negative growth effects. However, these mitigating intergenerational effects do not appear to persist later in life. We found no indication that stickleback mothers plastically altered offspring phenotypic variance (egg size or clutch size) in response to temperature variation. However, lower inter-individual variance of juvenile fish morphology in offspring of increased variation parents may imply the presence of conservative bet-hedging strategies in natural populations. Overall, in our experiment, parental exposure to temperature variation had limited effects on offspring fitness-related traits. Natural levels of environmental variation promoted a potentially adaptive intergenerational response in early life development, but under more challenging conditions associated with increased environmental variation, the effect was lost.

Germ plasm dynamics during oogenesis and early embryonic development in Xenopus and zebrafish.

Specification of the germline and its segregation from the soma mark one of the most crucial events in the lifetime of an organism. In different organisms, this specification can occur through either inheritance or inductive mechanisms. In species such as Xenopus and zebrafish, the specification of primordial germ cells relies on the inheritance of maternal germline determinants that are synthesized and sequestered in the germ plasm during oogenesis. In this review, we discuss the formation of the germ plasm, how germline determinants are recruited into the germ plasm during oogenesis, and the dynamics of the germ plasm during oogenesis and early embryonic development.

Development of Mobile Learning Android Application Learning on Patterns of Inheritance of Traits in Mendel's Laws

Genetics is a branch of biology that contains a lot of difficult material, for example inheritance patterns, gene interactions, hereditary inheritance and protein synthesis mechanisms, so it requires media as an aid in the learning process. Learning media created using the Kodular.io software is an educational product in the form of an Android application that includes material on inheritance patterns based on Mendel's laws. The aim of this research is to develop mobile learning media, Android application, and material on inheritance patterns based on Mendel's laws and to see the feasibility of learning media. This type of research is Research and Development (R&D) and the research model used includes the stages of Analysis, Design, Development and Evaluation. The research instruments used were observation sheets, questionnaires, research sheets and documentation. The research subjects in the study were students in class XII MA Jambi City Laboratory. The trial was carried out on 6 students and 15 students. The material validation results are in the very feasible category and the media validation results are in the very feasible category. The results of trials in small groups are in the very good category and the results of trials in large groups are in the very good category, and the results of teacher perceptions are in the very good category. Based on data analysis, it can be concluded that the media is suitable for use in learning.

Identification of intergenerational epigenetic inheritance by whole genome DNA methylation analysis in trios

Genome-wide association studies have identified thousands of loci associated with common diseases and traits. However, a large fraction of heritability remains unexplained. Epigenetic modifications, such as the observed in DNA methylation have been proposed as a mechanism of intergenerational inheritance. To investigate the potential contribution of DNA methylation to the missing heritability, we analysed the methylomes of four healthy trios (two parents and one offspring) using whole genome bisulphite sequencing. Of the 1.5 million CpGs (19%) with over 20% variability between parents in at least one family and compatible with a Mendelian inheritance pattern, only 3488 CpGs (0.2%) lacked correlation with any SNP in the genome, marking them as potential sites for intergenerational epigenetic inheritance. These markers were distributed genome-wide, with some preference to be located in promoters. They displayed a bimodal distribution, being either fully methylated or unmethylated, and were often found at the boundaries of genomic regions with high/low GC content. This analysis provides a starting point for future investigations into the missing heritability of simple and complex traits.

A Study on the Inheritance and Protection Mechanism of Chinese Handicraft Intangible Cultural Heritage

This paper takes the intangible cultural heritage of Chinese handicrafts as the object of study, aiming to deeply explore the mechanism of its inheritance and protection. The intangible cultural heritage of handicrafts refers to traditional artefacts and handicraft products created through craftsmanship, as well as the knowledge, skills and cultural expressions associated with them. Such heritage is not only a collection of tangible products, but also intangible cultural expressions rich in history, culture, skills and philosophy. They often represent the history, tradition and identity of a culture. Chinese handicrafts have a rich history and contain many cultural connotations and historical values. Each craft holds deep cultural traditions and unique regional characteristics. The innovation of the article is that it proposes a diversified protection framework, stresses the synergy of government, market and society, and analyses the lessons learned in combination with specific cases. It is found that although China's intangible cultural heritage of handicrafts faces many challenges, such as the impact of industrialization, the transformation of the market economy, and the loss of talents in traditional skills, its inheritance and preservation can be effectively promoted through measures such as improving laws and regulations, strengthening public education, and promoting social participation. The article ultimately calls for the construction of an inclusive protection mechanism to achieve the sustainable development of China's handicraft-based intangible cultural heritage. (This article is the result of the project "Mutual learning of strategies for preservation and transmission of intangible cultural heritage of Russia and China in the field of handicrafts".)

Ensemble Multifactorial Evolution With Biased Skill-Factor Inheritance for Many-Task Optimization

Current years have witnessed an increment in the number of research activities on improving the efficacy of multitasking algorithms for tackling challenging optimization problems. However, current approaches often present two potential problems. Firstly, although tasks may have different characteristics, existing literature usually utilizes only one search operator for all of them. Secondly, while multitasking environments comprise tasks of varying difficulty, previous proposals treat them equally. This paper proposes an algorithm named Ensemble Multifactorial Evolution with Biased Skill Factor Inheritance (EME-BI) for optimizing a large number of tasks simultaneously. In EME-BI, an effective parameter adaptation based on the knowledge transfer quality with Biased Skill-Factor Inheritance mechanism is designed to minimize negative transfer and allocate generated offspring to tasks that need resources. Besides, instead of using only one fixed search operator, EME-BI can automatically select the most appropriate one for each task at each evolutionary stage. Finally, the proposed algorithm is armed with a dynamically adjusted population size to promote exploitation. Empirical studies on various many-task benchmark problems and a real-world problem are conducted to verify the efficiency of EME-BI. The results portrayed that EME-BI achieves highly competitive performance compared to several state-of-the-art algorithms regarding the solution quality, convergence trend, and computation time. This proposal also won first prize at the CEC2021 Competition on Evolutionary Multi-task Optimization, Multi-task single-objective optimization.

Transmission of social status drives cooperation and offspring philopatry.

The evolution of cooperation depends on two crucial overarching factors: relatedness, which describes the extent to which the recipient shares genes in common with the actor; and quality, which describes the recipient's basic capacity to transmit genes into the future. While most research has focused on relatedness, there is a growing interest in understanding how quality modulates the evolution of cooperation. However, the impact of inheritance of quality on the evolution of cooperation remains largely unexplored, especially in spatially structured populations. Here, we develop a mathematical model to understand how inheritance of quality, in the form of social status, influences the evolution of helping and harming within social groups in a viscous-population setting. We find that: (1) status-reversal transmission, whereby parental and offspring status are negatively correlated, strongly inhibits the evolution of cooperation, with low-status individuals investing less in cooperation and high-status individuals being more prone to harm; (2) transmission of high status promotes offspring philopatry, with more cooperation being directed towards the higher-dispersal social class; and (3) fertility inequality and inter-generational status inheritance reduce within-group conflict. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering different mechanisms of phenotypic inheritance, including social support, and their potential interactions in shaping animal societies.