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Inheritance of protection from osmotic stress

Nature Cell Biology volume 19, pages 151–152 (2017)Cite this article

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Exposure of mother worms to mild osmotic stress induces gene expression changes in offspring that protect them from strong osmotic stress. Inheritance of protection is now shown to depend on altered insulin-like signalling in the maternal germline, which confers protection through increased expression of zygotic gpdh-2, a rate-limiting enzyme in glycerol biosynthesis.

The germline is the conduit between generations. Consequently, most models of transmission of information across generations invoke packaging of information in the gametes, egg and sperm. Environmental cues could directly signal the germline or alternatively could signal somatic cells, which in turn signal the germline. Burton et al. provide evidence for the latter. First, the authors tackled the question of how strong osmotic stress causes larval arrest and found that the arrest response depended on changes in insulin-like signalling4 from sensory neurons to the intestine (Fig. 1a). Their findings support a model in which strong osmotic stress inhibits release of the insulin-like peptide INS-3 from sensory neurons. This prevents activation of the insulin receptor DAF-2 in the intestine. Inhibition of DAF-2 signalling allows the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16 to enter intestinal nuclei to impact gene expression and promote entry of larvae into a stress-resistant arrested state. Next, the authors tackled the question of how exposure of mother worms to mild osmotic stress protects their offspring from strong osmotic stress (Fig. 1b). Remarkably, a similar signalling cascade is involved. While the larval response to strong osmotic stress required inhibition of DAF-2 in the intestine, the maternal response to mild osmotic stress required inhibition of DAF-2 in the germline. An additional player in the germline was shown to be the RAS–ERK pathway, which is activated by insulin-like signalling and therefore was inhibited when DAF-2 was inhibited by osmotic stress. These findings illustrate one mechanism for how environmental conditions, sensed by somatic cells, can influence germ cells.

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Figure 1: Adaptive and maternally inherited larval responses to osmotic stress.

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  1. Kiyomi R. Kaneshiro and Susan Strome are in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA,

    Kiyomi R. Kaneshiro & Susan Strome

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  1. Kiyomi R. Kaneshiro
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Correspondence to Susan Strome.

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Kaneshiro, K., Strome, S. Inheritance of protection from osmotic stress. Nat Cell Biol 19, 151–152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb3483

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