Perception of Temperature Even in the Absence of Actual Change is Sufficient to Drive Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance

Can processes occurring in one individuals nervous system influence the physiology of the descendants? Here we explored the provocative hypothesis that parents sensation or perception of environmental cues can influence their offspring, extending across many subsequent generations. We show that in Caenorhabditis elegans, temperature perception on its own can induce transgenerational changes in RNAi factors, small RNAs, and the genes that they regulate. Moreover, we identified secreted factors that enable a pair of thermosensory neurons (AFD) to communicate with the germline and trace the path of the epigenetic signal. We further modeled the process mathematically and validated the new predictions generated by the model experimentally. Hence, our results demonstrate that sensory perception is sufficient to trigger small RNA-mediated heritable gene expression memory.