Fig. 1: Paternal exposure to ionizing radiation leads to transgenerational embryonic lethality.

a, Pedigrees of the maternal and paternal exposure to different doses of ionizing radiation and transgenerational characterization. Left, maternal exposure to ionizing radiation (P₀ ∆f) leads to intergenerational embryonic lethality in the F₁ generation. Except for the group treated with 90 Gy, which has no surviving progeny developing to adulthood, the surviving fog-2 F₁ (∆ff and ∆fm) crossed with non-irradiated opposite sexes recovered the embryonic lethality to basal level. n indicates the number of biological replicates; each replicate includes three fog-2 females and three fog-2 males. Right, paternal ionizing radiation exposure (P₀ ∆m) leads to a mild increase in embryonic lethality in the F₁ generation, and the progeny of the surviving F₁ (∆mf and ∆mm) show a transgenerational embryonic lethality in the F₂ generation. n indicates the number of biological replicates. Data are median ± 95% confidence interval; P values are shown. Throughout the figures, red bars indicate females and blue bars indicate males. NA, not applicable. b, Pedigrees of paternal ionizing radiation exposure (90 Gy) and the transgenerational lethality characterization for three consequent generations. n = 3 biological replicates, each replicate includes 3 females with 3 males. Data are median ± 95% confidence interval; P values are shown. c, Freshly irradiated P₀ adult males and males two days after ionizing radiation exposure show different transgenerational effects. fog-2: n = 3 biological replicates; spe-8: n = 5 biological replicates; each replicate includes 3 females and 3 males. Data are median ± 95% confidence interval; P values are shown. Generalized linear model (GLM) with logit link function and Tukey’s multiple comparisons were used for proportional data, and one-way (a,b) or two-way (c) ANOVA with arcsine transformation was also used to confirm the statistical results (Supplementary Table 1).