Sperm-inherited H3K27me3 impacts offspring transcription and development in C. elegans

Kiyomi Raye Kaneshiro, Andreas Rechtsteiner and Susan Strome ()
Additional contact information
Kiyomi Raye Kaneshiro: University of California, Santa Cruz
Andreas Rechtsteiner: University of California, Santa Cruz
Susan Strome: University of California, Santa Cruz

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Paternal epigenetic inheritance is gaining attention for its growing medical relevance. However, the form in which paternal epigenetic information is transmitted to offspring and how it influences offspring development remain poorly understood. Here we show that in C. elegans, sperm-inherited chromatin states transmitted to the primordial germ cells in offspring influence germline transcription and development. We show that sperm chromosomes inherited lacking the repressive histone modification H3K27me3 are maintained in that state by H3K36me3 antagonism. Inheritance of H3K27me3-lacking sperm chromosomes results in derepression in the germline of somatic genes, especially neuronal genes, predominantly from sperm-inherited alleles. This results in germ cells primed for losing their germ cell identity and adopting a neuronal fate. These data demonstrate that histone modifications are one mechanism through which epigenetic information from a father can shape offspring gene expression and development.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09141-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-09141-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09141-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().