Genes silenced down the generations, thanks to tails on messenger RNA

Reed, Kailee J.; Montgomery, Taiowa A.

doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01417-2

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20 May 2020

Genes silenced down the generations, thanks to tails on messenger RNA

It emerges that strings of nucleotides are added to messenger RNAs that are undergoing silencing in nematode worms. The composition of these nucleotide tails promotes the formation of small RNAs that drive heritable gene regulation.

Kailee J. Reed⁰ &
Taiowa A. Montgomery¹

Kailee J. Reed
1. Kailee J. Reed is in the Cell and Molecular Biology Program, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA.
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Taiowa A. Montgomery
1. Taiowa A. Montgomery is in the Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA.
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Discovered in the minuscule nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans nearly 30 years ago, small RNAs have been implicated in a surprising range of biological processes, from antiviral defence in plants to cancer in humans¹. In C. elegans, these RNAs can be transmitted from one generation to the next, providing a non-DNA-based mechanism for heritable gene silencing, in which messenger RNAs are inhibited or degraded². But the molecular details underlying the phenomenon have remained elusive. Writing in Nature, Shukla et al.³ describe an enzyme that converts even seemingly innocuous mRNAs into templates for the formation of small RNAs and mediators of transgenerational gene silencing.

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Nature 582, 191-192 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01417-2

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