- Inheritance
- Not something that is contained in a will, but rather a gene, chromosome or genome that is transmitted from parent to child. The pattern of inheritance is the manner in which a gene is transmitted. For example, the pattern of inheritance may be as an autosomal dominant trait that is transmitted from father or mother to son or daughter.
* * *1. Characters or qualities that are transmitted from parent to offspring by coded cytologic data; that which is inherited. 2. Cultural or legal endowment. 3. The act of inheriting. [L. heredito, inherit, fr. heres (hered-), an heir]- alternative i. 1. SYN: mendelian i.. 2. galton term for an assumed form in which all the characters are derived from one parent.- codominant i. i. in which two alleles are individually expressed in the presence of each other; there may be other alleles available at the locus that may or may not exhibit codominance.- collateral i. the appearance of characters in collateral members of a family group, as when an uncle and a niece show the same character inherited from a common ancestor; in recessive characters it may appear irregularly, in contrast to dominant characters transmitted directly from one generation to the next.- cytoplasmic i. transmission of characters dependent on self-perpetuating elements not nuclear in origin ( e.g., mitochondrial DNA). SYN: extranuclear i..- dominant i. dominance of traits.- extrachromosomal i. transmission of characters dependent on some factor not connected with the chromosomes.- extranuclear i. SYN: cytoplasmic i..- galtonian i. i. in which a measurable phenotype is generated by many loci, the contributions of which are statistically independent, additive, and of about equal value. (The latter are in accordance with the classical central limit therein and justify the use of the multivariate normal distribution in galtonian genetics). SYN: polygenic i..- hologynic i. transmission of a trait from mother to her daughters but to no sons, attributed to attached (partially fused) X chromosomes, to cytoplasmic i., or to sex limitation with abnormal segregation, e.g., hematocolpos.- maternal i. transmission of characters that are dependent on properties of the egg cytoplasm produced by nuclear genes or by mitochondrial genes or both.- mendelian i. i. in which stable and undecomposable characters controlled entirely or overwhelmingly by a single genetic locus are transmitted over many generations. See Mendel first law, law of segregation, law of independent assortment. SYN: alternative i. (1).- mosaic i. i. in which the paternal influence is dominant in one group of cells and the maternal in another. Cf.:lyonization.- multifactorial i. i. involving many factors, of which at least one is genetic but none is of overwhelming importance, as in the causation of a disease by multiple genetic and environmental factors. Cf.:galtonian i..- recessive i. dominance of traits.- sex-influenced i. i. that is autosomal but has a different intensity of expression in the two sexes, e.g., male pattern baldness.- sex-limited i. i. of a trait that can be expressed in one sex only, e.g., testicular feminization.- sex-linked i. the pattern of i. that may result from a mutant gene located on either the X or Y chromosome.- Y-linked i. the pattern of i. that may result from a mutant gene located on a Y chromosome. SYN: holandric i..
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1) the reception of genetic qualities by transmission from parent to offspring2) all of the genetic characters or qualities transmitted from parent to offspring compare GENOTYPE (2), PHENOTYPE* * *
in·her·i·tance (in-herґĭ-təns) [L. inhereditare to appoint an heir] 1. the acquisition of characters or qualities by transmission from parent to offspring. 2. a character or quality that is transmitted from parent to offspring. See also entries under character, trait, and gene.
Medical dictionary. 2011.
