Caenorhabditis elegans sperm carry a histone-based epigenetic memory of both spermatogenesis and oogenesis

Tomoko M. Tabuchi, Andreas Rechtsteiner, Tess E. Jeffers, Thea A. Egelhofer, Coleen T. Murphy and Susan Strome ()
Additional contact information
Tomoko M. Tabuchi: University of California Santa Cruz
Andreas Rechtsteiner: University of California Santa Cruz
Tess E. Jeffers: Carl Icahn Lab 148, Princeton University
Thea A. Egelhofer: University of California Santa Cruz
Coleen T. Murphy: Carl Icahn Lab 148, Princeton University
Susan Strome: University of California Santa Cruz

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Paternal contributions to epigenetic inheritance are not well understood. Paternal contributions via marked nucleosomes are particularly understudied, in part because sperm in some organisms replace the majority of nucleosome packaging with protamine packaging. Here we report that in Caenorhabditis elegans sperm, the genome is packaged in nucleosomes and carries a histone-based epigenetic memory of genes expressed during spermatogenesis, which unexpectedly include genes well known for their expression during oogenesis. In sperm, genes with spermatogenesis-restricted expression are uniquely marked with both active and repressive marks, which may reflect a sperm-specific chromatin signature. We further demonstrate that epigenetic information provided by sperm is important and in fact sufficient to guide proper germ cell development in offspring. This study establishes one mode of paternal epigenetic inheritance and offers a potential mechanism for how the life experiences of fathers may impact the development and health of their descendants.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06236-8 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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06236-8

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06236-8

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 ().