Environmental Temperature Controls Accumulation of Transacting siRNAs Involved in Heterochromatin Formation.

ABSTRACT: Genes or alleles can interact by small RNAs in a homology dependent manner meaning that short interfering (siRNAs) can act in trans at the chromatin level producing stable and heritable silencing phenotypes. Because of the puzzling data on endogenous paramutations, their impact contributing to adaptive evolution in a Lamarckian manner remains unknown. An increasing number of studies characterizes the underlying siRNA accumulation pathways using transgene experiments. Also in the ciliate Paramecium tetraurelia, we induce trans silencing on the chromatin level by injection of truncated transgenes. Here, we characterize the efficiency of this mechanism at different temperatures showing that silencing of the endogenous genes is temperature dependent. Analyzing different transgene constructs at

SUBMITTER: Pirritano M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5852613 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature