Yeast colonies - the red cells show the silenced phenotype, the white cells don’t
Epigenetic memory of transcriptional gene silencing has been observed in several organisms. However, it was not known whether mechanisms exist that convey transgenerational memory of a silencing "experience", without silencing the gene permanently. The Bühler group has now found such a phenomenon in a unicellular organism. The Bühler group has previously shown that synthetic small RNAs can trigger transcriptional silencing of protein-coding genes in fission yeast cells. Because the coding sequence of the silenced gene remains unchanged, and the silent state is inherited to subsequent generations even in the absence of the synthetic small RNAs, this phenomenon can be considered "truly" epigenetic. Importantly, this is only possible if the activity of an RNA polymerase-associated factor (Paf1) is impaired. When that is the case, as the Bühler group has demonstrated, the silent state can be inherited for at least 18 generations.
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