{"doi":"10.1242/dev.196600","title":"<i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> establishes germline versus soma by balancing inherited histone methylation","abstract":"ABSTRACT Formation of a zygote is coupled with extensive epigenetic reprogramming to enable appropriate inheritance of histone methylation and prevent developmental delays. In Caenorhabditis elegans, this reprogramming is mediated by the H3K4me2 demethylase SPR-5 and the H3K9 methyltransferase, MET-2. In contrast, the H3K36 methyltransferase MES-4 maintains H3K36me2/3 at germline genes between generations to facilitate re-establishment of the germline. To determine whether the MES-4 germline inheritance pathway antagonizes spr-5; met-2 reprogramming, we examined the interaction between these two pathways. We found that the developmental delay of spr-5; met-2 mutant progeny is associated with ectopic H3K36me3 and the ectopic expression of MES-4-targeted germline genes in somatic tissues. Furthermore, the developmental delay is dependent upon MES-4 and the H3K4 methyltransferase, SET-2. We propose that MES-4 prevents crucial germline genes from being repressed by antagonizing maternal spr-5; met-2 reprogramming. Thus, the balance of inherited histone modifications is necessary to distinguish germline versus soma and prevent developmental delay. This article has an associated ‘The people behind the papers’ interview.","journal":"Development","year":2021,"id":177060,"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":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9491,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":449557,"name":"Teresa W. Lee","orcid":"0000-0002-0149-5389","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":577056,"name":"Caroline F. Plott","orcid":"0000-0001-5713-6062","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720592,"name":"Juan David González-Rodríguez","orcid":"0000-0002-8863-2007","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":577057,"name":"Jovan S. Brockett","orcid":"0000-0002-0665-553X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":577936,"name":"Dexter A. Myrick","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":449558,"name":"David J. Katz","orcid":"0000-0002-3040-1142","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":577055,"name":"Brandon S. Carpenter","orcid":"0000-0001-9939-1926","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":79,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:28.018172Z","pmid":"33462111","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":[]}