Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France.
EMBO Rep. 2013 May;14(5):458-64. doi: 10.1038/embor.2013.38. Epub 2013 Apr 5.
Transposable elements (TEs), whose propagation can result in severe damage to the host genome, are silenced in the animal gonad by Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). piRNAs produced in the ovaries are deposited in the embryonic germline and initiate TE repression in the germline progeny. Whether the maternally transmitted piRNAs play a role in the silencing of somatic TEs is however unknown. Here we show that maternally transmitted piRNAs from the tirant retrotransposon in Drosophila are required for the somatic silencing of the TE and correlate with an increase in histone H3K9 trimethylation an active tirant copy.
转座元件 (TEs) 的传播可能导致宿主基因组严重受损，它们在动物性腺中被 Piwi 相互作用 RNA (piRNAs) 沉默。在卵巢中产生的 piRNAs 被沉积在胚胎生殖细胞中，并在生殖细胞后代中启动 TE 抑制。然而，母源传递的 piRNAs 是否在体细胞 TE 的沉默中起作用尚不清楚。在这里，我们表明，果蝇中 tirant 逆转录转座子的母源传递 piRNAs 是体细胞 TE 沉默所必需的，并且与组蛋白 H3K9 三甲基化的增加相关，这是一个活跃的 tirant 拷贝。
