Matching is important: the right combination of parents can turn off a gene indefinitely

There is evidence that what happens in one generation—diet, exposure to toxins, trauma, fear—may have lasting effects on future generations

But how these changes are passed on from generation to generation is unclear, partly because scientists still don’t have an easy way to study this phenomenon

"There is a lot of interest in genetic epigenetics," said Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at UMD and senior author of the study

In this new study, Joss and his team discovered that during the process of reproducing nematodes, some mating causes epigenetic changes in their offspring, and this change continues to be passed on as scientists continue to reproduce nematodes

Jose and his team started this work in 2013 when they were studying the nematode, C.

"It all started when we stumbled upon a rare gene that has undergone permanent changes for hundreds of generations just through mating

To better understand this phenomenon, the researchers conducted breeding experiments in which only the mother or father carried the fluorescent gene

"We found that these RNA signals control gene expression," Jose said

When the silence signal wins, the gene will be silenced permanently, or at least 300 generations.

"Although we have discovered a set of genes that can be silenced almost permanently, most other genes will not be affected in the same way," said Dr.

Based on their new findings, the researchers now believe that some genes may be more susceptible to permanent epigenetic changes, while others can be restored within a few generations

Jose said: "The two great advantages we now get from this work are that this lasting epigenetic change is easily caused by mating, and it happens at the level of a gene

Jose and his colleagues predict that future research may one day help scientists identify human genes that are susceptible to long-term epigenetic changes

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Mating can initiate stable RNA silencing that overcomes epigenetic recovery, Sindhuja Devanapally, Pravrutha Raman, Mary Chey, Samual Allgood, Farida Ettefa, Maïgane Diop, Yixin Lin, Yongyi E Cho, and Antony M Jose, was published on July 9, 2021, in the journal Nature Communications .