Brinedew

Unpublished draft

Weismann Barrier

The Weismann barrier is the strict distinction between the “immortal” germ cell lineages producing gametes and “disposable” somatic cells in animals, in contrast to Charles Darwin’s proposed pangenesis mechanism for inheritance.1

Diagram of Weismann’s germ-plasm theory: the hereditary material, the germ plasm, is confined to the gonads. Somatic cells (of the body) develop afresh in each generation from the germ plasm. Whatever may happen to those cells does not affect the next generation. Wikimedia Commons.

In more precise terminology, hereditary information is copied only from germline cells to somatic cells. New information from somatic mutation is not passed on to the germline; the barrier concept