ArticleCurrent biology : CB2021
piRNAs coordinate poly(UG) tailing to prevent aberrant and perpetual gene silencing.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- piRNA: Molecular Mechanisms from Germline Silencing to Somatic Regulation and Roles in Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Nuclear Argonaute HRDE-1 Maintains Chromatin-Independent Transcriptional Silencing through a Transgenerational Small RNA Feedback Loop.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A unified framework governing the establishment and maintenance of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.Genetics · 2025Article
- A genetic framework for RNAi inheritance in Caenorhabditis elegans.EMBO reports · 2025Article
- RNA helicase unravels the secrets of germ granules.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2025Article
- A nuclear pore-anchored condensate enables germ granule organization and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2025Article
- Intraspecific variation in the duration of epigenetic inheritance.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Nucleoporins shape germ granule architecture and balance small RNA silencing pathways.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- HERD-1 mediates multiphase condensate immiscibility to regulate small RNA-driven transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.Nature cell biology · 2024Article
- MUT-7 exoribonuclease activity and localization are mediated by an ancient domain.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Heritable epigenetic changes are constrained by the dynamics of regulatory architectures.eLife · 2024Article
- Paramutation at the maize pl1 locus is associated with RdDM activity at distal tandem repeats.PLoS genetics · 2024Article
- Pre-piRNA trimming safeguards piRNAs against erroneous targeting by RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Inheritance of Stress Responses via Small Non-Coding RNAs in Invertebrates and Mammals.Epigenomes · 2023Review
- Solution Structure of Poly(UG) RNA.Journal of molecular biology · 2023Article
- C. elegans germ granules sculpt both germline and somatic RNAome.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Epigenetic inheritance of gene silencing is maintained by a self-tuning mechanism based on resource competition.Cell systems · 2023Article
- An atypical RNA quadruplex marks RNAs as vectors for gene silencing.Nature structural & molecular biology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Noncoding RNAs have emerged as mediators of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) in a number of organisms. A robust example of such RNA-directed TEI is the inheritance of gene-silencing states following RNA interference (RNAi) in the metazoan C. elegans. During RNAi inheritance, gene silencing is transmitted by a self-perpetuating cascade of siRNA-directed poly(UG) tailing of mRNA fragments (pUGylation), followed by siRNA synthesis from poly(UG)-tailed mRNA templates (termed pUG RNA/siRNA cycling). Despite the self-perpetuating nature of pUG RNA/siRNA cycling, RNAi inheritance is finite, suggesting that systems likely exist to prevent indefinite RNAi-triggered gene silencing. Here we show that, in the absence of Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), an animal-specific class of small noncoding RNA, RNAi-based gene silencing can become essentially permanent, lasting at near 100% penetrance for more than 5 years and hundreds of generations. This perpetual gene silencing is mediated by continuous pUG RNA/siRNA cycling. Further, we find that piRNAs coordinate endogenous RNAi pathways to prevent germline-expressed genes, which are not normally subjected to TEI, from entering a state of continual and irreversible epigenetic silencing also mediated by continuous maintenance of pUG RNA/siRNA cycling. Together, our results show that one function of C. elegans piRNAs is to insulate germline-expressed genes from aberrant and runaway inactivation by the pUG RNA/siRNA epigenetic inheritance system.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.