Worms’ Epigenetic Memories

When kept at warmer temperatures for five generations, C. elegans showed evidence of “remembering” that experience for up to 14 generations.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Researchers engineered C. elegans with multiple copies of a transgene called mCHERRY connected to a promoter for daf-21. When kept at 25 degrees, the worms began to fluoresce red and had progeny that showed similarly elevated expression of the transgenes, despite never having experienced the higher temperature—an effect that persisted for seven generations. When worms were kept at 25 degrees for five generations, the memory of the heatwave lasted longer, with expression levels taking as many as 14 generations to return to normal.

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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