Silencing of Repetitive DNA Is Controlled by a Member of an Unusual Caenorhabditis elegans Gene Family.

ABSTRACT: Repetitive DNA sequences are subject to gene silencing in various animal species. Under specific circumstances repetitive DNA sequences can escape such silencing. For example, exogenously added, extrachromosomal DNA sequences that are stably inherited in multicopy repetitive arrays in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are frequently silenced in the germline, whereas such silencing often does not occur in the soma. This indicates that somatic cells might utilize factors that prevent repetitive DNA silencing. Indeed, such "antisilencing" factors have been revealed through genetic screens that identified mutant loci in which repetitive transgenic arrays are aberrantly silenced in the soma. We describe here a novel locus, pals-22 (for protein containing ALS2CR12 signature), req

SUBMITTER: Leyva-Diaz E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5629321 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature