PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) promote fertility in many animals. Yet, whether this is due to their conserved role in repressing repetitive elements (REs) remains unclear. Here, we show that the progressive loss of fertility in Caenorhabditis elegans lacking piRNAs is not caused by derepression of REs or other piRNA targets, but rather mediated by the epigenetic silencing of all the replicative histone genes. In the absence of piRNAs, downstream components of the piRNA pathway relocalize from germ granules and piRNA targets to histone mRNAs to synthesize antisense small RNAs (sRNAs) and induce transgenerational silencing. Removal of the downstream components of the piRNA pathway restores histone mRNA expression and fertility in piRNA mutants, and the inheritance of histone sRNAs in wild-type worms adversely affects their fertility for multiple generations.
More...PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) promote fertility in many animals. Yet, whether this is due to their conserved role in repressing repetitive elements (REs) remains unclear. Here, we show that the progressive loss of fertility in Caenorhabditis elegans lacking piRNAs is not caused by derepression of REs or other piRNA targets, but rather mediated by the epigenetic silencing of all the replicative histone genes. In the absence of piRNAs, downstream components of the piRNA pathway relocalize from germ granules and piRNA targets to histone mRNAs to synthesize antisense small RNAs (sRNAs) and induce transgenerational silencing. Removal of the downstream components of the piRNA pathway restores histone mRNA expression and fertility in piRNA mutants, and the inheritance of histone sRNAs in wild-type worms adversely affects their fertility for multiple generations. We conclude that the sRNA-mediated silencing of histone genes impairs fertility of piRNA mutants and may serve to maintain piRNAs across evolution.
Overall design: Refer to individual Series
Less...| Accession | PRJNA516897; GEO: GSE125601 |
| Type | Umbrella project |
| Publications | Barucci G et al., "Small-RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants.", Nat Cell Biol, 2020 Feb;22(2):235-245 |
| Submission | Registration date: 24-Jan-2019
mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance, Development and stem cell biology, Institut Pasteur |
| Relevance | Superseries |
Project Data:
| Resource Name | Number
of Links |
|---|
| Sequence data |
| SRA Experiments | 51 |
| Publications |
| PubMed | 1 |
| PMC | 1 |
| Other datasets |
| BioSample | 51 |
| GEO DataSets | 5 |
Small RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants encompasses the following 4 sub-projects:
| Project Type | Number of Projects |
| Other | 2 |
BioProject
accession | Organism | Title |
|---|
| PRJNA516903 | Caenorhabditis elegans | Small RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants (sRNA-Seq IP) (mechanisms of epigenetic...) | | PRJNA516904 | Caenorhabditis elegans | Small RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants (GRO-Seq) (mechanisms of epigenetic...) |
|
| Transcriptome or Gene expression | 2 |
BioProject
accession | Organism | Title |
|---|
| PRJNA516901 | Caenorhabditis elegans | Small RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants (sRNA-Seq) (mechanisms of epigenetic...) | | PRJNA516902 | Caenorhabditis elegans | Small RNA-mediated transgenerational silencing of histone genes impairs fertility in piRNA mutants (RNA-Seq) (mechanisms of epigenetic...) |
|