RRC ID 65384
Author Houri-Zeevi L, Teichman G, Gingold H, Rechavi O.
Title Stress resets ancestral heritable small RNA responses.
Journal Elife
Abstract Transgenerational inheritance of small RNAs challenges basic concepts of heredity. In Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes, small RNAs are transmitted across generations to establish a transgenerational memory trace of ancestral environments and distinguish self-genes from non-self-elements. Carryover of aberrant heritable small RNA responses was shown to be maladaptive and to lead to sterility. Here, we show that various types of stress (starvation, high temperatures, and high osmolarity) induce resetting of ancestral small RNA responses and a genome-wide reduction in heritable small RNA levels. We found that mutants that are defective in various stress pathways exhibit irregular RNAi inheritance dynamics even in the absence of stress. Moreover, we discovered that resetting of ancestral RNAi responses is specifically orchestrated by factors that function in the p38 MAPK pathway and the transcription factor SKN-1/Nrf2. Stress-dependent termination of small RNA inheritance could protect from run-on of environment-irrelevant heritable gene regulation.
Volume 10
Published 2021-3-17
DOI 10.7554/eLife.65797
PII 65797
PMID 33729152
PMC PMC8021399
MeSH Animals Caenorhabditis elegans / genetics Caenorhabditis elegans / physiology* Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / genetics* Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / metabolism RNA, Helminth / genetics* RNA, Helminth / metabolism Stress, Physiological / genetics Stress, Physiological / physiology*
Resource
C.elegans tm1944