A Prion Epigenetic Switch Establishes an Active Chromatin State

A Synthetic Approach to Reconstruct the Evolutionary and Functional Innovations of the Plant Histone Variant H2A.W

“…Previous studies have shown that upregulation of fastevolving genes present in subtelomeric heterochromatin of yeast modulates survival in stressful conditions. [23][24][25] This led us to investigate the impact of spH2A.W At on gene expression. We performed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis in WT and spH2A.W At strains in the presence or absence of formamide and observed changes of expression levels for less than a hundred genes (Figures S3A and S3B).…”

Whi3 Mnemon Association with Endoplasmic Reticulum Membranes Confines the Memory of Deceptive Courtship to the Yeast Mother Cell

“…The distinction between prions and mnemons points to different cellular strategies selected to either encode collective memory which are passed to the entire yeast colony, for example, by prions [38][39][40][41][42] or individual memory, restricted to the cell that experienced the memorized event. The selection of mechanisms (prions or mnemons) may relate to which strategy would be more efficient.…”

Many Paths to Anticipatory Behavior: Anticipatory Model Acquisition Across Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Timescales

“…Such epigenetic variation may be induced by the external environment, internal regulatory factors, and random fluctuations in the cellular milieu (Jablonka and Lamb 2005). 9 Although the molecular mechanisms underwriting epigenetic inheritance are still not known in many systems, some of the mechanisms that are currently recognized include structural templating (e.g., conformation of prion proteins) (Harvey et al 2020), self-sustaining gene regulatory loops (Roberts and Wickner 2003;Dubnau and Losick 2006;Zordan et al 2006), small RNA interference (Nowacki et al 2008;Rechavi et al 2011), and chromatin marking (e.g., patterns of DNA methylation and histone modification) (Chandler 2007;Castel and Martienssen 2013). 10 Importantly, these mechanisms are overlapping and interdependent (Cedar and Bergman 2009;Bateson and Gluckman 2011), the interaction between small noncoding RNAs and other epigenetic mechanisms likely playing a major role in providing specificity to other epigenetic mechanisms (Koziol and Rinn 2010).…”