DNA damage in germ cells induces an innate immune response that triggers systemic stress resistance.

ABSTRACT: DNA damage responses have been well characterized with regard to their cell-autonomous checkpoint functions leading to cell cycle arrest, senescence and apoptosis. In contrast, systemic responses to tissue-specific genome instability remain poorly understood. In adult Caenorhabditis elegans worms germ cells undergo mitotic and meiotic cell divisions, whereas somatic tissues are entirely post-mitotic. Consequently, DNA damage checkpoints function specifically in the germ line, whereas somatic tissues in adult C. elegans are highly radio-resistant. Some DNA repair systems such as global-genome nucleotide excision repair (GG-NER) remove lesions specifically in germ cells. Here we investigated how genome instability in germ cells affects somatic tissues in C. elegans. We show that exogenous an

SUBMITTER: Ermolaeva MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4120807 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature