TY - JOUR AU - Koonin, Eugene V. PY - 2012 DA - 2012/08/23 TI - Does the central dogma still stand? JO - Biology Direct SP - 27 VL - 7 IS - 1 AB - Prions are agents of analog, protein conformation-based inheritance that can confer beneficial phenotypes to cells, especially under stress. Combined with genetic variation, prion-mediated inheritance can be channeled into prion-independent genomic inheritance. Latest screening shows that prions are common, at least in fungi. Thus, there is non-negligible flow of information from proteins to the genome in modern cells, in a direct violation of the Central Dogma of molecular biology. The prion-mediated heredity that violates the Central Dogma appears to be a specific, most radical manifestation of the widespread assimilation of protein (epigenetic) variation into genetic variation. The epigenetic variation precedes and facilitates genetic adaptation through a general ‘look-ahead effect’ of phenotypic mutations. This direction of the information flow is likely to be one of the important routes of environment-genome interaction and could substantially contribute to the evolution of complex adaptive traits. SN - 1745-6150 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6150-7-27 DO - 10.1186/1745-6150-7-27 ID - Koonin2012 ER -