@article {De Abreu289629, author = {Diana Andrea Fernandes De Abreu and Thalia Salinas-Gieg{\'e} and Laurence Mar{\'e}chal-Drouard and Jean-Jacques Remy}, title = {Alanine tRNAs translate environment into behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans}, elocation-id = {289629}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.1101/289629}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, abstract = {Caenorhabditis elegans worms produce and keep imprints of the attractive chemosensory cues to which they are exposed early in life. Imprinting enhances transiently or permanently chemoattraction to early olfactory cues.Here we report olfactory imprinting can be transferred from odor-exposed to naive worms via RNA feeding. Biochemical fractionation identified the tRNAAla (UGC) as the olfactory imprinting molecule. Indeed tRNAAla (UGC) extracted from odor-exposed woms transfers odor-specific imprints, suggesting odor-stimuli trigger tRNAAla (UGC) changes. Furthermore mutations in the Elongator complex sub-units 1 or 3 either impair chemo-attractive behavior or stably suppress odor-specific responses upon odor-exposure. Naive wild-type tRNAAla (UGC) rescue the behavioral phenotypes of Elongator mutant worms. tRNAAla (UGC) changes triggered by the Elongator complex and the early olfactory environment control both the innate and the experience-modulated C. elegans chemoattractive behavior.}, URL = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/27/289629}, eprint = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/03/27/289629.full.pdf}, journal = {bioRxiv} }