Germ granules function as stress-responsive hubs to protect germ cell resilience

Heat stress in adult Caenorhabditis elegans germ cells extensively remodels germ granules, reducing enrichment of genome defense and epigenetic inheritance factors while enabling stress granule and P-body assembly.

• Why it matters: Germ cells often maintain viability despite stress-linked disruption of genome defense and epigenetic inheritance, but how they adapt and recover remains unclear.
• What they did: The study examined heat-stressed adult germ cells in C. elegans, testing whether stress granule and P-body formation depends on germ granule assembly factors GLH-1/VASA and MIP-1 and on stress granule factors GTBP-1/G3BP1 and TIAR-1/TIA1.
• The result: Stress granule and P-body formation largely requires GLH-1/VASA and MIP-1, and both germ granule and stress granule factors are essential for recovery of germ cell viability after heat stress, with TIAR-1/TIA1 localizing to germ granules with and without stress.