Pärandvormingus

Pärandvormingus is a hypothetical concept in the study of inheritance that describes the formation and transmission of heritable phenotypic patterns through non-genetic information across generations, without changes to the DNA sequence. The term is built from Estonian pärand (inheritance) and the suffix -vormingus (formation). It is used in theoretical discussions to frame how parental state and environment can influence offspring beyond DNA sequence changes.

Possible mechanisms include epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation and histone marks that persist across generations, cytoplasmic factors in gametes, small RNAs, and early developmental provisioning. It does not imply new mutations; rather, information about past environments might be stored in heritable states of chromatin or molecular cargo and retained through cell divisions and sometimes across generations, in a manner not fully captured by the standard Mendelian view.

Relation to known concepts: Pärandvormingus is related to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and parental effects but is presented as a formal concept that emphasizes the formation of heritable patterns rather than a single mechanism. Its prevalence and durability across taxa are subjects of scientific debate, and the specifics of how it operates remain areas of ongoing research.

Examples and status: In discussions of model organisms, ancestral stress or nutrition has been reported to influence offspring phenotypes without DNA sequence changes, illustrating the idea behind pärandvormingus. However, disentangling genetic, epigenetic, and environmental contributions remains challenging, and the term is mainly used in theoretical and comparative contexts to frame potential pathways alongside genetic inheritance.