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Updated: Feb 10, 2026

Bacterial Delivery of RNAi Effectors: Transkingdom RNAi
Published on: August 18, 2010
A Cytoplasmic Argonaute Protein Promotes the Inheritance of RNAi
Fei Xu1, Xuezhu Feng1, Xiangyang Chen1
1Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China.
Abstract:
RNAi-elicited gene silencing is heritable and can persist for multiple generations after its initial induction in C. elegans. However, the mechanism by which parental-acquired trait-specific information from RNAi is inherited by the progenies is not fully understood. Here, we identified a cytoplasmic Argonaute protein, WAGO-4, necessary for the inheritance of RNAi. WAGO-4 exhibits asymmetrical translocation to the germline during early embryogenesis, accumulates at the perinuclear foci in the germline, and is required for the inheritance of exogenous RNAi targeting both germline- and soma-expressed genes. WAGO-4 binds to 22G-RNAs and their mRNA targets. Interestingly, WAGO-4-associated endogenous 22G-RNAs target the same cohort of germline genes as CSR-1 and contain untemplated addition of uracil at the 3' ends. The poly(U) polymerase CDE-1 is required for the untemplated uridylation of 22G-RNAs and inheritance of RNAi. Therefore, we conclude that, in addition to the nuclear RNAi pathway, the cytoplasmic RNAi machinery also promotes RNAi inheritance.
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