piRNA-mediated transgenerational inheritance of an acquired trait

Ancestor aging does not affect piRNA production of genomic loci flanking defective I-element fragments. (A) Boxplots display the fold change in the level of genome-unique piRNAs mapping to defective I-element fragments (right) and to associated flanking 1-kb bins (left). Only genomic loci producing at least one piRNA per million total sequenced piRNAs in both R^L_3d and R^H_3d ovary libraries were considered. (Dashed line) The one-fold change value. Wilcoxon signed-rank test P = 10⁻⁸, n = 26. (B) Correlation between the fold change in the level of genome-unique piRNAs mapping to each defective I-element fragment and the fold change in the level of genome-unique piRNAs mapping to their associated flanking 1-kb bins (Spearman's rank correlation test: ρ = −0.15; P = 0.43, n = 26).