RRC ID 65199
Author Schwartz-Orbach L, Zhang C, Sidoli S, Amin R, Kaur D, Zhebrun A, Ni J, Gu SG.
Title Caenorhabditis elegans nuclear RNAi factor SET-32 deposits the transgenerational histone modification, H3K23me3.
Journal Elife
Abstract Nuclear RNAi provides a highly tractable system to study RNA-mediated chromatin changes and epigenetic inheritance. Recent studies have indicated that the regulation and function of nuclear RNAi-mediated heterochromatin are highly complex. Our knowledge of histone modifications and the corresponding histonemodifying enzymes involved in the system remains limited. In this study, we show that the heterochromatin mark, H3K23me3, is induced by nuclear RNAi at both exogenous and endogenous targets in C. elegans. In addition, dsRNA-induced H3K23me3 can persist for multiple generations after the dsRNA exposure has stopped. We demonstrate that the histone methyltransferase SET-32, methylates H3K23 in vitro. Both set-32 and the germline nuclear RNAi Argonaute, hrde-1, are required for nuclear RNAi-induced H3K23me3 in vivo. Our data poise H3K23me3 as an additional chromatin modification in the nuclear RNAi pathway and provides the field with a new target for uncovering the role of heterochromatin in transgenerational epigenetic silencing.
Volume 9
Published 2020-8-17
DOI 10.7554/eLife.54309
PII 54309
PMID 32804637
PMC PMC7431132
MeSH Animals Caenorhabditis elegans / genetics* Caenorhabditis elegans / metabolism Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / genetics* Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / metabolism Histone Methyltransferases / genetics* Histone Methyltransferases / metabolism Histones / metabolism* RNA Interference* RNA, Nuclear / genetics RNA, Nuclear / metabolism
Resource
C.elegans tm1200