Medical Definition of Extranuclear inheritance
1.
Inheritance of parental characters through a nonchromosomal means, thus mitochondrial DNA is cytoplasmically inherited since the information is not segregated at mitosis.
In a broader sense the organisation of a cell may be inherited through the continuity of structures from one generation to the next. It has often been speculated that the information for some structures may not be encoded in the genomic DNA, particularly in protozoa that have complex patterns of surface organelles.
See: maternal inheritance.
This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology
(11 Mar 2008)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Extranuclear Inheritance
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