Unraveling the role of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance mediated by paramutation in natural animal populations.

Understanding how organisms rapidly adapt to changing environments is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology.

Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) has been proposed as a mechanism that allows organisms to respond flexibly to environmental variation and thus plays a central role in rapid adaptation to fluctuating environments.

A compelling example of this process is paramutation, in which epigenetic information is transferred from one allele to another, leading to heritable changes in gene expression across generations.

However, our understanding of paramutation in natural animal populations remains limited, with most evidence coming from laboratory models.

This knowledge gap hinders our understanding of the role of paramutation in nature.Here, we will study paramutation in different natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster to investigate its potential to drive transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and gene expression variation that can shape evolution.

We will investigate the responsiveness of paramutation to environmental changes and its heritable stability across generations.

We will also establish a model to dissect the molecular mechanisms of paramutation regulation, assessing the role of insulator proteins such as Su(Hw) and 3D chromatin conformation.

This project will provide a comprehensive investigation of the role of paramutation in natural animal populations at multiple levels of information, including genetics, epigenetics, gene expression, and 3D chromatin structure.This research proposal aims not only to determine the biological relevance of a case of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance such as paramutation in natural animal populations but more importantly to provide an excellent model system for its in-depth molecular dissection.