Germ Granules Govern Small RNA Inheritance

Current Biology : CB
Itamar LevOded Rechavi

Abstract

In C. elegans nematodes, components of liquid-like germ granules were shown to be required for transgenerational small RNA inheritance. Surprisingly, we show here that mutants with defective germ granules can nevertheless inherit potent small RNA-based silencing responses, but some of the mutants lose this ability after many generations of homozygosity. Animals mutated in pptr-1, which is required for stabilization of P granules in the early embryo, display extraordinarily strong heritable RNAi responses, lasting for tens of generations. Intriguingly, the RNAi capacity of descendants derived from mutants defective in the core germ granule proteins MEG-3 and MEG-4 is determined by the genotype of the ancestors and changes transgenerationally. Further, whether the meg-3/4 mutant alleles were present in the paternal or maternal lineages leads to different transgenerational consequences. Small RNA inheritance, rather than maternal contribution of the germ granules themselves, mediates the transgenerational defects in RNAi of meg-3/4 mutants and their progeny. Accordingly, germ granule defects lead to heritable genome-wide mis-expression of endogenous small RNAs. Upon disruption of germ granules, hrde-1 mutants can inherit RNAi, alt...Continue Reading

Citations

Oct 14, 2019·Traffic·Stephanie SpannlHyun O Lee
May 29, 2020·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Yifan PeiBart Kempenaers
Jun 17, 2020·Biochemical Society Transactions·Rachel M Woodhouse, Alyson Ashe
Aug 9, 2020·G3 : Genes - Genomes - Genetics·Celja J UebelCarolyn M Phillips
Oct 22, 2019·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Noa LibermanEric Lieberman Greer
Oct 15, 2020·Development·Rajaram VishnupriyaKuppuswamy Subramaniam
Feb 3, 2021·Trends in Cell Biology·Adam E SundbyJulie M Claycomb
Mar 18, 2021·ELife·Leah Houri-ZeeviOded Rechavi
Apr 20, 2021·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Natalya Frolows, Alyson Ashe
Jun 1, 2021·Frontiers in Immunology·Marcia ManterolaAndrea Calixto
Jul 31, 2021·Nucleic Acids Research·Amanda G CharlesworthJulie M Claycomb
Oct 3, 2020·Developmental Cell·Anne E Dodson, Scott Kennedy

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Datasets Mentioned

BETA
GSE128112

Methods Mentioned

BETA
RNA Seq
HTseq

Software Mentioned

Image2
MATLAB
Qubit
Shortstack
Ensembl
DEseq2
Cutadapt
FastQC
GraphPad Prism
MetaMorph

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