Radical Genetic Finding Called Into Question

Alternate method of inheritance may be down to contamination.

One of last year's most stunning biological discoveries is being called into question. Researchers say they are unable to repeat experiments that were thought to reveal a form of inheritance previously believed impossible.

In their 2005 Nature paper, Bob Pruitt and his colleagues at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, challenged the textbook rule stating that offspring receive a mix-and-match of their parents' genes. They suggested that some plants can instead convert their genetic sequences back into the code possessed by their grandparents or earlier generations — a discovery that sent ripples through the genetics community and beyond.

Now Steve Jacobsen of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues say they cannot replicate Pruitt's work in their own experiments. In a short paper published online in Nature, they say stray pollen could account for Pruitt's results instead.