@article{7b696b8035fa420d90c3cb67b92d5ae1,
title = "The role of the Cer1 transposon in horizontal transfer of transgenerational memory",
abstract = "Animals face both external and internal dangers: pathogens threaten from the environment, and unstable genomic elements threaten from within. C. elegans protects itself from pathogens by “reading” bacterial small RNAs, using this information to both induce avoidance and transmit memories for four generations. Here, we found that memories can be transferred from either lysed animals or from conditioned media to naive animals via Cer1 retrotransposon-encoded virus-like particles. Moreover, Cer1 functions internally at the step of transmission of information from the germline to neurons and is required for learned avoidance. The presence of the Cer1 retrotransposon in wild C. elegans strains correlates with the ability to learn and inherit small-RNA-induced pathogen avoidance. Together, these results suggest that C. elegans has co-opted a potentially dangerous retrotransposon to instead protect itself and its progeny from a common pathogen through its inter-tissue signaling ability, hijacking this genomic element for its own adaptive immunity benefit.",
keywords = "C. elegans, Cer1, PA14, horizontal transfer, learning, memory, pathogenic, retrotransposon, small RNA",
author = "Moore, {Rebecca S.} and Rachel Kaletsky and Chen Lesnik and Vanessa Cota and Edith Blackman and Parsons, {Lance R.} and Zemer Gitai and Murphy, {Coleen T.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank the C. elegans Genetics Center for strains, Princeton's Imaging and Analysis Center; J. Priess (FHCC) for providing anti-Cer1 GAG antibody hybridoma, S. Petry for equipment; BioRender.com for model figure design software, J. Shepherd and the laboratory of C.T.M. for discussion, and R. Clausen for assistance. C.T.M. is the Director of the Glenn Center for Aging Research at Princeton and an HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar. This work was supported by the HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar Program (AWD1005048), a Pioneer Award to C.T.M. (NIGMS DP1GM119167), T32GM007388 (NIGMS) to R.S.M. and a Pioneer Award to Z.G. (DP1A1124669). Conceptualization, R.S.M. R.K. and C.T.M.; methodology, R.S.M. R.K. C.L. and C.T.M.; investigation, R.S.M. R.K. C.L. V.C. E.B. and L.R.P.; writing, R.S.M. R.K. and C.T.M.; funding acquisition, C.T.M. and Z.G. The authors declare no competing interests. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as an underrepresented ethnic minority in science. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. While citing references scientifically relevant for this work, we also actively worked to promote gender balance in our reference list. Funding Information: We thank the C. elegans Genetics Center for strains, Princeton{\textquoteright}s Imaging and Analysis Center; J. Priess (FHCC) for providing anti-Cer1 GAG antibody hybridoma, S. Petry for equipment; BioRender.com for model figure design software, J. Shepherd and the laboratory of C.T.M. for discussion, and R. Clausen for assistance. C.T.M. is the Director of the Glenn Center for Aging Research at Princeton and an HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar. This work was supported by the HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar Program ( AWD1005048 ), a Pioneer Award to C.T.M. ( NIGMS DP1GM119167 ), T32GM007388 ( NIGMS ) to R.S.M., and a Pioneer Award to Z.G. ( DP1A1124669 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Elsevier Inc.",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
day = "2",
doi = "10.1016/j.cell.2021.07.022",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "184",
pages = "4697--4712.e18",
journal = "Cell",
issn = "0092-8674",
publisher = "Cell Press",
number = "18",
}