Angiogenin mediates paternal inflammation-induced metabolic disorders in offspring through sperm tsRNAs

Y Zhang, L Ren, X Sun, Z Zhang, J Liu, Y Xin… - Nature …, 2021 - nature.com
Y Zhang, L Ren, X Sun, Z Zhang, J Liu, Y Xin, J Yu, Y Jia, J Sheng, G Hu, R Zhao, B He
Nature communications, 2021nature.com
Paternal environmental inputs can influence various phenotypes in offspring, presenting
tremendous implications for basic biology and public health and policy. However, which
signals function as a nexus to transmit paternal environmental inputs to offspring remains
unclear. Here we show that offspring of fathers with inflammation exhibit metabolic disorders
including glucose intolerance and obesity. Deletion of a mouse tRNA RNase, Angiogenin
(Ang), abolished paternal inflammation-induced metabolic disorders in offspring …
Abstract
Paternal environmental inputs can influence various phenotypes in offspring, presenting tremendous implications for basic biology and public health and policy. However, which signals function as a nexus to transmit paternal environmental inputs to offspring remains unclear. Here we show that offspring of fathers with inflammation exhibit metabolic disorders including glucose intolerance and obesity. Deletion of a mouse tRNA RNase, Angiogenin (Ang), abolished paternal inflammation-induced metabolic disorders in offspring. Additionally, Ang deletion prevented the inflammation-induced alteration of 5′-tRNA-derived small RNAs (5′-tsRNAs) expression profile in sperm, which might be essential in composing a sperm RNA ‘coding signature’ that is needed for paternal epigenetic memory. Microinjection of sperm 30–40 nt RNA fractions (predominantly 5′-tsRNAs) from inflammatory Ang+/+ males but not Ang–/– males resulted in metabolic disorders in the resultant offspring. Moreover, zygotic injection with synthetic 5′-tsRNAs which increased in inflammatory mouse sperm and decreased by Ang deletion partially resembled paternal inflammation-induced metabolic disorders in offspring. Together, our findings demonstrate that Ang-mediated biogenesis of 5′-tsRNAs in sperm contributes to paternal inflammation-induced metabolic disorders in offspring.
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