{"doi":"10.1126/sciadv.ado4170","title":"Regulation of MORC-1 is key to the CSR-1–mediated germline gene licensing mechanism in <i>C. elegans</i>","abstract":"The Argonaute CSR-1 is essential for germline development in C. elegans . Loss of CSR-1 leads to the down-regulation of thousands of germline-expressed genes, supporting a model in which CSR-1 “licenses” gene expression via a poorly understood mechanism. In contrast, a small subset of genes is up-regulated in csr-1 mutants, including morc-1 , which encodes a conserved GHKL-type ATPase. We show that morc-1 is overexpressed in csr-1 mutants and accumulates over CSR-1 licensed targets, coinciding with aberrant gain of H3K9me3, reduced H3K36me3, and transcriptional repression. Notably, loss of morc-1 fully rescues these chromatin defects and partially restores gene expression and fertility in csr-1 mutants. Conversely, ectopic overexpression of MORC-1 in the wild-type germ line is sufficient to repress CSR-1 licensed targets and severely compromise fertility. These findings support a model in which CSR-1 prevents MORC-1 overexpression and consequent misregulation of CSR-1 licensed genes.","journal":"Science Advances","year":2025,"id":568793,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9564,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":348560,"name":"Colette L. Picard","orcid":"0000-0002-2177-2216","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":618319,"name":"Natasha E. Weiser","orcid":"0000-0001-9971-2961","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1037020,"name":"Nicita Mehta","orcid":"0000-0001-7623-0580","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268619,"name":"Suhua Feng","orcid":"0000-0001-6048-0083","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1473582,"name":"Victoria N. Murphy","orcid":"0000-0003-4501-3772","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1473913,"name":"Anna Vakhnovetsky","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":551235,"name":"Amelia F. Alessi","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1473914,"name":"Connie Xiao","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1473583,"name":"Kai Inoki","orcid":"0009-0007-0191-7928","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298451,"name":"Sonia El Mouridi","orcid":"0000-0002-3674-3151","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298454,"name":"Christian Frøkjær‐Jensen","orcid":"0000-0002-3178-0906","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225877,"name":"Steven E. Jacobsen","orcid":"0000-0001-9483-138X","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287532,"name":"John K. Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-9838-3254","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1473912,"name":"Jessica A. Kirshner","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:55.795846Z","pmid":"40540580","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}