The
Weismann barrier, proposed by
August Weismann, is the principle that hereditary information moves only from genes to body cells, and never in reverse. In more precise terminology hereditary information moves only from
germline cells to
somatic cells (that is, soma to germline feedback is impossible). This does not refer to the
central dogma of molecular biology which states that no sequential information can travel from
protein to
DNA or
RNA.