{"doi":"10.7554/elife.60681","title":"SNPC-1.3 is a sex-specific transcription factor that drives male piRNA expression in C. elegans","abstract":"Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) play essential roles in silencing repetitive elements to promote fertility in metazoans. Studies in worms, flies, and mammals reveal that piRNAs are expressed in a sex-specific manner. However, the mechanisms underlying this sex-specific regulation are unknown. Here we identify SNPC-1.3, a male germline-enriched variant of a conserved subunit of the small nuclear RNA-activating protein complex, as a male-specific piRNA transcription factor in Caenorhabditis elegans . SNPC-1.3 colocalizes with the core piRNA transcription factor, SNPC-4, in nuclear foci of the male germline. Binding of SNPC-1.3 at male piRNA loci drives spermatogenic piRNA transcription and requires SNPC-4. Loss of snpc-1.3 leads to depletion of male piRNAs and defects in male-dependent fertility. Furthermore, TRA-1, a master regulator of sex determination, binds to the snpc-1.3 promoter and represses its expression during oogenesis. Loss of TRA-1 targeting causes ectopic expression of snpc-1.3 and male piRNAs during oogenesis. Thus, sexually dimorphic regulation of snpc-1.3 expression coordinates male and female piRNA expression during germline development.","journal":"eLife","year":2021,"id":178197,"datarank":0.7641122521865329,"base_score":2.995732273553991,"endowment":2.995732273553991,"self_citation_contribution":0.4493598410330987,"citation_network_contribution":0.3147524111534342,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4493598410330987,"citer_contribution":0.3147524111534342,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":19,"citer_count":17,"citers_with_citation_signal":13,"citers_with_endowment":13,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9565,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"GEO":["GSE152831"]},"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":723368,"name":"Rebecca J. Tay","orcid":"0000-0002-2270-0505","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":57603,"name":"Margaret R. Starostik","orcid":"0000-0002-5274-2765","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268619,"name":"Suhua Feng","orcid":"0000-0001-6048-0083","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298836,"name":"James J. Moresco","orcid":"0000-0003-1178-1642","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":603594,"name":"Brooke E. E. Montgomery","orcid":"0000-0002-3316-8665","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723369,"name":"Emily Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-6066-8147","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723370,"name":"Maya Hammonds","orcid":"0000-0002-3559-4617","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":24539,"name":"Michael C. Schatz","orcid":"0000-0002-4118-4446","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":703304,"name":"Taiowa A. Montgomery","orcid":"0000-0001-7857-3253","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":55408,"name":"John R. Yates","orcid":"0000-0001-5267-1672","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225877,"name":"Steven E. Jacobsen","orcid":"0000-0001-9483-138X","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287532,"name":"John K. Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-9838-3254","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":453432,"name":"Charlotte P. Choi","orcid":"0000-0002-1857-6599","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":101,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:36.112170Z","pmid":"33587037","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":[]}