RNA Therapeutics Institute Publications
Title
ZNFX-1 Functions within Perinuclear Nuage to Balance Epigenetic Signals
UMMS Affiliation
RNA Therapeutics Institute; Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology
Publication Date
2018-05-17
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins | Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | Cell and Developmental Biology | Genetic Phenomena | Genetics and Genomics | Nucleic Acids, Nucleotides, and Nucleosides
Abstract
Animal cells have a remarkable capacity to adopt durable and heritable gene expression programs or epigenetic states that define the physical properties and diversity of somatic cell types. The maintenance of epigenetic programs depends on poorly understood pathways that prevent gain or loss of inherited signals. In the germline, epigenetic factors are enriched in liquid-like perinuclear condensates called nuage. Here, we identify the deeply conserved helicase-domain protein, ZNFX-1, as an epigenetic regulator and component of nuage that interacts with Argonaute systems to balance epigenetic inheritance. Our findings suggest that ZNFX-1 promotes the 3' recruitment of machinery that propagates the small RNA epigenetic signal and thus counteracts a tendency for Argonaute targeting to shift 5' along the mRNA. These functional insights support the idea that recently identified subdomains of nuage, including ZNFX-1 granules or "Z-granules," may define spatial and temporal zones of molecular activity during epigenetic regulation.
Keywords
Argonaute, C. elegans, CSR-1, P-granule, PIWI, RNAa, RNAe, RdRP, ZNFX-1, nuage
DOI of Published Version
10.1016/j.molcel.2018.04.009
Source
Mol Cell. 2018 May 17;70(4):639-649.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2018.04.009. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Molecular cell
Related Resources
PubMed ID
29775580
Repository Citation
Ishidate T, Ozturk AR, Durning DJ, Sharma R, Shen E, Chen H, Seth M, Shirayama M, Mello CC. (2018). ZNFX-1 Functions within Perinuclear Nuage to Balance Epigenetic Signals. RNA Therapeutics Institute Publications. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2018.04.009. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/rti_pubs/51