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Published November 28, 2008 | Accepted Version + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

An Epigenetic Role for Maternally Inherited piRNAs in Transposon Silencing

Abstract

In plants and mammals, small RNAs indirectly mediate epigenetic inheritance by specifying cytosine methylation. We found that small RNAs themselves serve as vectors for epigenetic information. Crosses between Drosophila strains that differ in the presence of a particular transposon can produce sterile progeny, a phenomenon called hybrid dysgenesis. This phenotype manifests itself only if the transposon is paternally inherited, suggesting maternal transmission of a factor that maintains fertility. In both P- and I-element–mediated hybrid dysgenesis models, daughters show a markedly different content of Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) targeting each element, depending on their parents of origin. Such differences persist from fertilization through adulthood. This indicates that maternally deposited piRNAs are important for mounting an effective silencing response and that a lack of maternal piRNA inheritance underlies hybrid dysgenesis.

Additional Information

© 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 26 August 2008; accepted 27 October 2008. We thank M. Rooks and D. McCombie (CSHL) for help with deep sequencing, S. Jensen and S. Ronsseray for fly stocks and helpful discussions, and D. Finnegan for the I-element ORF-1 antibody. J.B. is supported by a fellowship from The Ernst Schering Foundation, C.D.M. is a Beckman fellow of the Watson School of Biological Sciences and is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and A.S. is supported by a Human Frontier Science Program fellowship. This work was supported by grants from NIH to G.J.H. and A.A.A. and a kind gift from K. W. Davis (to G.J.H.). Small RNA libraries are deposited at Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no. GSE13081, data sets GSM327620 to GSM327634).

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Accepted Version - nihms162951.pdf

Supplemental Material - Brennecke.SOM.pdf

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