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How mothers program sons to use their Y chromosomes

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In many species, maternally deposited Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) deliver intergenerational epigenetic information to protect progeny from transposon expansion or invasion. However, Y-chromosome-encoded piRNAs cannot be passed from mothers to male offspring, yet mothers use autosomally encoded piRNAs to allow sons to utilize their Y chromosome to protect against ‘selfish’ elements.

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Fig. 1: Armitage is required for repression of Ste in XX mothers but not in XXY mothers.

References

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This is a summary of: Venkei, Z. G. et al. A maternally programmed intergenerational mechanism enables male offspring to make piRNAs from Y-linked precursor RNAs in Drosophila. Nat. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-023-01227-4 (2023).

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How mothers program sons to use their Y chromosomes. Nat Cell Biol 25, 1413–1414 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-023-01239-0

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