Small RNAs reflect grandparental environments in apomictic dandelion: Letter

TY - JOUR

T1 - Small RNAs reflect grandparental environments in apomictic dandelion

T2 - Letter

AU - Morgado, L.

AU - Preite, V.

AU - Oplaat, C.

AU - Anava, S.

AU - Ferreira de Carvalho, J.L.

AU - Rechavi, O.

AU - Johannes, F.

AU - Verhoeven, K.J.F.

N1 - 6286, TE; Data archiving: data archived in NCBI

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Plants can show long-term effects of environmental stresses and in some cases a stress “memory” has been reported to persist across generations, potentially mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. However, few documented cases exist of transgenerational effects that persist for multiple generations and it remains unclear if or how epigenetic mechanisms are involved. Here, we show that the composition of small regulatory RNAs in apomictic dandelion lineages reveals a footprint of drought stress and salicylic acid treatment experienced two generations ago. Overall proportions of 21 and 24 nt RNA pools were shifted due to grandparental treatments. While individual genes did not show strong up- or downregulation of associated sRNAs, the subset of genes that showed the strongest shifts in sRNA abundance was significantly enriched for several GO terms including stress-specific functions. This suggests that a stress-induced signal was transmitted across multiple unexposed generations leading to persistent changes in epigenetic gene regulation.

AB - Plants can show long-term effects of environmental stresses and in some cases a stress “memory” has been reported to persist across generations, potentially mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. However, few documented cases exist of transgenerational effects that persist for multiple generations and it remains unclear if or how epigenetic mechanisms are involved. Here, we show that the composition of small regulatory RNAs in apomictic dandelion lineages reveals a footprint of drought stress and salicylic acid treatment experienced two generations ago. Overall proportions of 21 and 24 nt RNA pools were shifted due to grandparental treatments. While individual genes did not show strong up- or downregulation of associated sRNAs, the subset of genes that showed the strongest shifts in sRNA abundance was significantly enriched for several GO terms including stress-specific functions. This suggests that a stress-induced signal was transmitted across multiple unexposed generations leading to persistent changes in epigenetic gene regulation.

KW - international

UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA360587

U2 - 10.1093/molbev/msx150

DO - 10.1093/molbev/msx150

M3 - Article

JO - Molecular Biology and Evolution

JF - Molecular Biology and Evolution

SN - 0737-4038

M1 - msx150

ER -