{"id":8053,"date":"2019-05-22T16:03:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/germ_plasm\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:03:31","slug":"germ_plasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/germ_plasm\/","title":{"rendered":"Germ plasm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A term devised by <a href=\"http:\/\/abhsscience.wikispaces.com\/August+Weismann\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/abhsscience.wikispaces.com\/August+Weismann&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August Weismann<\/a> (1834-1914) for a kind of&nbsp;protoplasm in the nuclei of the reproductive or germ cells and tissues of the body, which constituted the hereditary material. &nbsp;It is thus analogous to DNA. &nbsp;He distinguished the germ cells from the soma or somatic cells, which make no contribution to germ plasm during development. &nbsp;The germ plasm was, according to Weismann, was divided into smaller, hierarchical arranged units that control development directly. &nbsp;The smallest units, which he termed biophors and which are analogous to messenger RNA, were depicted as consisting of molecules that were carriers of the &#8216;quality&#8217; of the cell. &nbsp;The next highest units were determinants made up of a collection of biophors and that in turn formed high-order relationships called ids. &nbsp;The ids were portrayed as being organised into idants, the most complex unit of the germ plasm, and which are approximately the same as chromosomes. &nbsp;Weismann claimed that the idants contained all of the heredity material, but we know now that each chromosome only contains part of the entire genome. &nbsp;Alternative terms for germ plasm are gonoplasm and idioplasm.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"central_dogma_of_molecular_biology\">Central dogma of molecular biology<\/a>, <a href=\"chromosome\">Chromosome<\/a>, <a href=\"dna_-deoxyribonucleic_acid-\">DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)<\/a>, <a href=\"germinal_-or_germ-_layers\">Germinal (or germ) layers<\/a>, <a href=\"modern_synthesis\">Modern synthesis<\/a>, <a href=\"oocytes\">Oocytes<\/a>, <a href=\"oogenia\">Oogenia<\/a>, <a href=\"protoplasm\">Protoplasm<\/a>, <a href=\"rna_-ribonucleic_acid-\">RNA (ribonucleic acid)<\/a>, <a href=\"soma_-or_somatic_cells-\">Soma (or somatic cells)<\/a>, <a href=\"theory_of_the_germ_plasm\">Theory of the germ plasm<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A term devised by August Weismann (1834-1914) for a kind of&nbsp;protoplasm in the nuclei of the reproductive or germ cells and tissues of the body, which constituted the hereditary material. &nbsp;It is thus analogous to DNA. &nbsp;He distinguished the germ cells from the soma or somatic cells, which make no contribution to germ plasm during &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/germ_plasm\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Germ plasm&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}