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Alternative somatic and germline gene-regulatory strategies during starvation-induced developmental arrest

View ORCID ProfileAmy K. Webster, Rojin Chitrakar, View ORCID ProfileL. Ryan Baugh
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441514
Amy K. Webster
1Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
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Rojin Chitrakar
1Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
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L. Ryan Baugh
1Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
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  • For correspondence: ryan.baugh@duke.edu
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SUMMARY

Nutrient availability governs growth and quiescence, and many animals arrest development when starved. Somatic and germline cells have distinct functions and constraints, suggesting different regulatory mechanisms contribute to an integrated starvation response. Using C. elegans L1 arrest as a model, we show that gene expression changes deep into starvation. Surprisingly, relative expression of germline-enriched genes increases for days. We conditionally degraded the large subunit of RNA Polymerase II and found that early but not late somatic transcription is required for survival and that germline transcription does not affect survival. Expression analysis revealed that thousands of genes are continuously transcribed in the soma, though their absolute abundance declines, while the germ line is transcriptionally quiescent with extreme transcript stability. This work reveals alternative somatic and germline gene-regulatory strategies during starvation, with the soma relying on a robust transcriptional response to support immediate survival while the germ line relies on transcriptional quiescence and mRNA stability to maintain future reproductive success.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted May 01, 2021.
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Alternative somatic and germline gene-regulatory strategies during starvation-induced developmental arrest
Amy K. Webster, Rojin Chitrakar, L. Ryan Baugh
bioRxiv 2021.04.30.441514; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441514
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Alternative somatic and germline gene-regulatory strategies during starvation-induced developmental arrest
Amy K. Webster, Rojin Chitrakar, L. Ryan Baugh
bioRxiv 2021.04.30.441514; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.30.441514

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