A transgenerational role of the germline nuclear RNAi pathway in repressing heat stress-induced transcriptional activation in C. elegans.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Environmental stress-induced transgenerational epigenetic effects have been observed in various model organisms and human. The capacity and mechanism of such phenomena are poorly understood. In C. elegans, siRNA mediates transgenerational gene silencing through the germline nuclear RNAi pathway. This pathway is also required to maintain the germline immortality when C. elegans is under heat stress. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is unknown. In this study, we investigated the impact of heat stress on chromatin, transcription, and siRNAs at the whole-genome level, and whether any of the heat-induced effects is transgenerationally heritable in either the wild-type or the germline nuclear RNAi mutant animals.

Results

We performed 12-generation temperature

SUBMITTER: Ni JZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4714518 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature