Small RNA inheritance in animal evolution
The inheritance of small RNAs (sRNAs) in response to environmental stress can affect population dynamics and alter evolutionary processes.
sRNA production is influenced by pathway components, including transposable elements and genetic constraints, making it challenging to study how or whether natural selection acts on sRNAs.
The authors define two adaptive sRNA inheritance strategies and explore their evolutionary consequences; specialists are genetically constrained to inherit only preselected RNA transcripts whereas generalists are unconstrained, allowing increased phenotypic variation under stress. They also discuss non-adaptive alternatives.
Convincing empirical tests of sRNA-mediated adaptation are lacking, and the authors suggest experimental approaches to address this problem.
Empirical studies need to link sRNA inheritance to fitness in biologically relevant environments.
https://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/fulltext/S0168-9525(25)00082-4
