Journal
NATURE REVIEWS GENETICS
Volume 17, Issue 12, Pages 733-743Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nrg.2016.106
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, USA
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China [2015CB943000, 2016YFA0500903, 2015DFG32640]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81490742, 31671568]
- US National Institutes of Health [HD060858, HD071736, HD085506]
- John Templeton Foundation, USA [PID: 50183]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Once deemed heretical, emerging evidence now supports the notion that the inheritance of acquired characteristics can occur through ancestral exposures or experiences and that certain paternally acquired traits can be 'memorized' in the sperm as epigenetic information. The search for epigenetic factors in mammalian sperm that transmit acquired phenotypes has recently focused on RNAs and, more recently, RNA modifications. Here, we review insights that have been gained from studying sperm RNAs and RNA modifications, and their roles in influencing offspring phenotypes. We discuss the possible mechanisms by which sperm become acquisitive following environmental-somatic-germline interactions, and how they transmit paternally acquired phenotypes by shaping early embryonic development.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available