Pangenesis
Pangenesis was Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity, in which he proposed that each part of the body continually emitted its own type of small organic particles called gemmules that aggregated in the gonads, contributing heritable information to the gametes.[1] He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, intending it to fill what he perceived as a major gap in evolutionary theory at the time. The etymology of the word comes from the Greek words pan (a prefix meaning "whole", "encompassing") and genesis ("birth") or genos ("origin"). Pangenesis mirrored ideas originally formulated by Hippocrates and other pre-Darwinian scientists, but using new concepts such as cell theory, explaining cell development as beginning with gemmules which were specified to be necessary for the occurrence of new growths in an organism, both in initial development and regeneration.[2] It also accounted for regeneration and the Lamarckian concept of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as a body part altered by the environment would produce altered gemmules. This made Pangenesis popular among the neo-Lamarckian school of evolutionary thought.[3] This hypothesis was made effectively obsolete after the 1900 rediscovery among biologists of Gregor Mendel's theory of the particulate nature of inheritance.
Early history
Pangenesis was similar to ideas put forth by Hippocrates, Democritus and other pre-Darwinian scientists in proposing that the whole of parental organisms participate in heredity (thus the prefix pan).[4] Darwin wrote that Hippocrates' pangenesis was "almost identical with mine—merely a change of terms—and an application of them to classes of facts necessarily unknown to the old philosopher."[5]
The historian of science Conway Zirkle wrote that:
The hypothesis of pangenesis is as old as the belief in the inheritance of acquired characters. It was endorsed by
Jerome Cardan, Levinus Lemnius, Venette, John Ray, Buffon, Bonnet, Maupertuis, von Haller and Herbert Spencer.[4]
Zirkle demonstrated that the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics had become fully accepted by the 16th century and remained immensely popular through to the time of Lamarck's work, at which point it began to draw more criticism due to lack of hard evidence.[4] He also stated that pangenesis was the only scientific explanation ever offered for this concept, developing from Hippocrates' belief that "the semen was derived from the whole body."[4] In the 13th century, pangenesis was commonly accepted on the principle that semen was a refined version of food unused by the body, which eventually translated to 15th and 16th century widespread use of pangenetic principles in medical literature, especially in gynecology.[4] Later pre-Darwinian important applications of the idea included hypotheses about the origin of the differentiation of races.[4]
A theory put forth by Pierre Louis Maupertuis in 1745 called for particles from both parents governing the attributes of the child, although some historians have called his remarks on the subject cursory and vague.[6][7]
In 1749, the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon developed a hypothetical system of heredity much like Darwin's pangenesis, wherein 'organic molecules' were transferred to offspring during reproduction and stored in the body during development.[7][8] Commenting on Buffon's views, Darwin stated, "If Buffon had assumed that his organic molecules had been formed by each separate unit throughout the body, his view and mine would have been very closely similar."[4]
In 1801,
In 1861, the Irish physician Henry Freke developed a variant of pangenesis in his book Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity.[13] Freke proposed that all life was developed from microscopic organic agents which he named granules, which existed as 'distinct species of organizing matter' and would develop into different biological structures.[14]
Four years before the publication of Variation, in his 1864 book Principles of Biology, Herbert Spencer proposed a theory of "physiological units" similar to Darwin's gemmules, which likewise were said to be related to specific body parts and responsible for the transmission of characteristics of those body parts to offspring.[5] He supported the Lamarckian idea of transmission of acquired characteristics.
Darwin had debated whether to publish a theory of heredity for an extended period of time due to its highly speculative nature. He decided to include pangenesis in Variation after sending a 30-page manuscript to his close friend and supporter
Theory
Darwin
Darwin's pangenesis theory attempted to explain the process of
Some gemmules were thought to remain dormant for generations, whereas others were routinely expressed by all offspring. Every child was built up from selective expression of the mixture of the parents and grandparents' gemmules coming from either side. Darwin likened this to gardening: a flowerbed could be sprinkled with seeds "most of which soon germinate, some lie for a period dormant, whilst others perish."
Darwin thought that environmental effects that caused altered characteristics would lead to altered gemmules for the affected body part. The altered gemmules would then have a chance of being transferred to offspring, since they were assumed to be produced throughout an organism's life.[2] Thus, pangenesis theory allowed for the Lamarckian idea of transmission of characteristics acquired through use and disuse. Accidental gemmule development in incorrect parts of the body could explain deformations and the 'monstrosities' Darwin cited in Variation.[2]
De Vries
Hugo de Vries characterized his own version of pangenesis theory in his 1889 book Intracellular Pangenesis with two propositions, of which he only accepted the first:
- I. In the cells there are numberless particles which differ from each other, and represent the individual cells, organs, functions and qualities of the whole individual. These particles are much larger than the chemical molecules and smaller than the smallest known organisms; yet they are for the most part comparable to the latter, because, like them, they can divide and multiply through nutrition and growth. They are transmitted, during cell-division, to the daughter-cells: this is the ordinary process of heredity.
- II. In addition to this, the cells of the organism, at every stage of development, throw off such particles, which are conducted to the germ-cells and transmit to them those characters which the respective cells may have acquired during development.[26]
Other variants
The historian of science
Interpretations and applications of pangenesis continued to appear frequently in medical literature up until Weismann's experiments and subsequent publication on germ-plasm theory in 1892.[4] For instance, an address by Huxley spurred on substantial work by Dr. James Ross in linking ideas found in Darwin's pangenesis to the germ theory of disease.[28] Ross cites the work of both Darwin and Spencer as key to his application of pangenetic theory.[28]
Collapse
Galton's experiments on rabbits
Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton conducted wide-ranging inquiries into heredity which led him to refute Charles Darwin's hypothetical theory of pangenesis. In consultation with Darwin, he set out to see if gemmules were transported in the blood. In a long series of experiments from 1869 to 1871, he transfused the blood between dissimilar breeds of rabbits, and examined the features of their offspring. He found no evidence of characters transmitted in the transfused blood.[29]
Galton was troubled because he began the work in good faith, intending to prove Darwin right, and having praised pangenesis in Hereditary Genius in 1869. Cautiously, he criticized his cousin's theory, although qualifying his remarks by saying that Darwin's gemmules, which he called "pangenes", might be temporary inhabitants of the blood that his experiments had failed to pick up.[30]
Darwin challenged the validity of Galton's experiment, giving his reasons in an article published in Nature where he wrote:[31]
Now, in the chapter on Pangenesis in my Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, I have not said one word about the blood, or about any fluid proper to any circulating system. It is, indeed, obvious that the presence of gemmules in the blood can form no necessary part of my hypothesis; for I refer in illustration of it to the lowest animals, such as the Protozoa, which do not possess blood or any vessels; and I refer to plants in which the fluid, when present in the vessels, cannot be considered as true blood." He goes on to admit: "Nevertheless, when I first heard of Mr. Galton's experiments, I did not sufficiently reflect on the subject, and saw not the difficulty of believing in the presence of gemmules in the blood.[31]
After the circulation of Galton's results, the perception of pangenesis quickly changed to severe skepticism if not outright disbelief.[18]
Weismann
After pangenesis
Darwin's pangenesis theory was widely criticised, in part for its
Some of Darwin's pangenesis principles do relate to heritable aspects of phenotypic plasticity, although the status of gemmules as a distinct class of organic particles has been firmly rejected. However, starting in the 1950s, many research groups in revisiting Galton's experiments found that heritable characteristics could indeed arise in rabbits and chickens following DNA injection or blood transfusion.[42] This type of research originated in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s in the work of Sopikov and others, and was later corroborated by researchers in Switzerland as it was being further developed by the Soviet scientists.[43][18] Notably, this work was supported in the USSR in part due to its conformation with the ideas of Trofim Lysenko, who espoused a version of neo-Lamarckism as part of Lysenkoism.[43] Further research of this heritability of acquired characteristics developed into, in part, the modern field of epigenetics. Darwin himself had noted that "the existence of free gemmules is a gratuitous assumption"; by some accounts in modern interpretation, gemmules may be considered a prescient mix of DNA, RNA, proteins, prions, and other mobile elements that are heritable in a non-Mendelian manner at the molecular level.[15][44][45] Liu points out that Darwin's ideas about gemmules replicating outside of the body are predictive of in vitro gene replication used, for instance, in PCR.[18]
See also
References
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- ^ a b c de Beer, Gavin (1965). Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 203.
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- ^ a b de Beer, Gavin (1965). Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 205.
- ISBN 0-226-36051-2"As Darwin was to discover many years later, Buffon had devised a system of heredity not all that different from his own theory of pangenesis."
- ISBN 978-90-481-9901-3"Among the other authors were Buffon, who proposes "organic molecules" with affinities to various organs, and, in particular, Erasmus Darwin, who in 1801 anticipated his grandson's concept of pangenesis, suggesting that small particles were given off by parts of the bodies of both parents; and that they are circulated in the blood, ending in the sexual organs from where they could be combined during reproduction in order to form the nucleus of an offspring."
- ISBN 978-1-84413-314-7.
- )
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- ^ Macalister, Alexander. (1870). Reviews and Bibliographical Notices. In Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, Volume 50. Fannin and Company. p. 131
- ^ Freke, Henry (1861). On the origin of species by means of organic affinity. Longman and Co.
- ^ PMID 4908353.
- ^ Letter 4875 – Huxley, T. H. to Darwin, C. R., 16 July (1865), Darwin Correspondence Project
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- ^ Allaby, Michael. 2010. Animals: From Mythology to Zoology "Plastitude"
- ^ a b c d Browne, Janet (2002). Charles Darwin—The Power of Place. London: Jonathon Cape. p. 275.
- ISBN 978-1-4191-8660-8.
- ^ a b Darwin, Charles (October 20, 1869). "To Scientific Opinion". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
- ^ Darwin, Charles (July 12, 1870). "To J. D. Hooker". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
- ^ Browne 2002, p. 276.
- ^ Browne 2002, p. 283.
- ^ de Vries, Hugo (1910) [1889]. Intracellular Pangenesis. p. 63. Retrieved May 2, 2015.
- ^ a b Browne 2002, p. 281.
- ^ a b Ross, James (1872). The Graft Theory of Disease: Being an Application of Mr. Darwin's Hypothesis of Pangenesis to the Explanation of the Phenomena of the Zymotic Diseases. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston.
- OCLC 559350911.
- ^ Browne 2002, p. 291–292.
- ^ doi:10.1038/003502a0.
- ^ Weismann, August (1892). Das Keimplasma: eine Theorie der Vererbung [The Germ Plasm: A theory of inheritance]. Jena: Fischer.
- JSTOR 4608123.
- ISBN 978-0-520-23693-6.
- ISBN 978-0-520-06386-0.
- ISSN 0006-3568.
- ^ Ghiselin, Michael T. (September–October 1994). "Nonsense in schoolbooks: 'The Imaginary Lamarck'". The Textbook Letter. The Textbook League. Retrieved 2008-01-23.
- ISBN 978-0-203-91100-6.
- ISBN 9785877362529.
- ^ de Beer, Gavin (1965). Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. p. 206.
- ^ Huxley, Julian (1949). Heredity East and West: Lysenko and World Science. New York: Henry Schuman. pp. 11, 141.
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- S2CID 19919317. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2012-03-30.
External links
- On-line Facsimile Edition of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication from Electronic Scholarly Publishing
- Variation under Domestication, From: Freeman, R. B. 1977. The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist. 2nd edn. Dawson: Folkestone, at DarwinOnline, with links to online versions of the 1st. edition, first and second issues, and the 2nd. edition.