Investigating how the conserved ZNFX-1 protein regulates epigenetic inheritance and germline immortality in Caenorhabditis elegans
Daniel Durning | Mello Lab | F31 Award
Germ cell immortality is essential for fertility and for species survival. To proliferate indefinitely, germ cells depend on mechanisms that maintain genome integrity and epigenetic programs. In animals, small RNAs that interact with Argonaute proteins of the PIWI family—called piRNAs—serve as a vanguard of transcriptome and epigenome integrity in the germline, by identifying and silencing transposable elements and by regulating germline gene expression. In many animals, piRNAs are essential for germline health. Defective piRNA biogenesis or function activates transposon expression and mobility, increases DNA damage, disrupts germ cell development, and reduces fertility. In Caenorhabditis elegans, small RNA pathways with opposing activities collaborate to maintain germ cell survival and fertility. Recent studies identified ZNFX-1 as a regulator of epigenetic inheritance in worms. ZNFX- 1 is a highly conserved UPF1-like helicase with C-terminal NF-X1-type zinc finger domains. znfx-1 mutants activate epigenetically silenced reporters, and in some cases they silence normally active reporters, indicating that ZNFX-1 balances opposing epigenetic programs. The targeting pattern of small RNAs redistributes in znfx- 1 mutants, suggesting that ZNFX-1 determines the origin of small RNAs required for silencing and anti-silencing pathways. Preliminary data also show that znfx-1 null mutations cause a mortal germline phenotype at elevated temperatures, suggesting that ZNFX-1 maintains balanced epigenetic signals essential for germline immortality. This proposal seeks to use genetic, computational, and biochemical approaches to test the hypothesis that ZNFX-1 is recruited to targets and identifies sites of small RNA biogenesis. Studies in Aim 1 will determine how ZNFX-1 regulates small RNA biogenesis by identifying how and where it binds to target transcripts, and if it unwinds or moves along RNA. Studies in Aim 2 will determine how ZNFX-1 regulates germline immortality by identifying functional domains of ZNFX-1, potentially redundant proteins with homologous domains, and small RNA and transcriptome features of germline immortality. These studies will reveal how animals transmit heritable epigenetic information and how epigenetic pathways maintain germ cell immortality. In addition, the proposed research will provide training in genetics and epigenetics, quantitative biochemistry, and computational approaches, and prepare the fellow for a postdoc in computational and systems biology and a future career as an independent investigator.
