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研究揭示Cer1转座子在跨代记忆水平转移中的作用
作者:小柯机器人 发布时间:2021/8/9 13:39:06

美国普林斯顿大学Coleen T. Murphy课题组揭示Cer1转座子在跨代记忆水平转移中的作用。相关论文于2021年8月6日在线发表于国际学术期刊《细胞》。

研究人员表示,动物面临着外部和内部的危险:病原体来自环境的威胁,而不稳定的基因组元素是来自内部的威胁。线虫通过"阅读"细菌的小RNA来保护自己免受病原体的侵害,并利用这些信息来诱导回避以及能够传递四代记忆。

研究人员发现记忆可以通过Cer1逆转座子编码的病毒样颗粒从裂解的动物或条件培养基转移到缺乏经验的动物。此外,Cer1在从种系向神经元传递信息的步骤中发挥内部功能,并且是学习性回避所必需的。Cer1逆转录子在野生线虫品系中的存在与学习和继承小RNA诱导的病原体回避能力相关。

总之,这些结果表明,线虫通过其组织间的信号传递能力获得了一个潜在的危险逆转座子,从而保护自己和其后代免受常见病原体的侵害。

附:英文原文

Title: The role of the Cer1 transposon in horizontal transfer of transgenerational memory

Author: Rebecca S. Moore, Rachel Kaletsky, Chen Lesnik, Vanessa Cota, Edith Blackman, Lance R. Parsons, Zemer Gitai, Coleen T. Murphy

Issue&Volume: 2021-08-06

Abstract: Animals face both external and internal dangers: pathogens threaten from the environment,and unstable genomic elements threaten from within. C. elegans protects itself from pathogens by “reading” bacterial small RNAs, using this informationto both induce avoidance and transmit memories for four generations. Here, we foundthat memories can be transferred from either lysed animals or from conditioned mediato naive animals via Cer1 retrotransposon-encoded virus-like particles. Moreover, Cer1 functions internally at the step of transmission of information from the germlineto neurons and is required for learned avoidance. The presence of the Cer1 retrotransposon in wild C. elegans strains correlates with the ability to learn and inherit small-RNA-induced pathogenavoidance. Together, these results suggest that C. elegans has co-opted a potentially dangerous retrotransposon to instead protect itself andits progeny from a common pathogen through its inter-tissue signaling ability, hijackingthis genomic element for its own adaptive immunity benefit.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.07.022

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00881-3

期刊信息
Cell:《细胞》,创刊于1974年。隶属于细胞出版社,最新IF:36.216
官方网址:https://www.cell.com/