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DNA damage responses have been well characterized with regard to their cell-autonomous checkpoint functions leading to cell cycle arrest, senescence and apoptosis. In contrast, systemic responses to tissue-specific genome instability remain poorly understood. In adult Caenorhabditis elegans worms germ cells undergo mitotic and meiotic cell divisions, whereas somatic tissues are entirely post-mitotic. Consequently, DNA damage checkpoints function specifically in the germ line, whereas somatic tissues in adult C. elegans are highly radio-resistant. Some DNA repair systems such as global-genome nucleotide excision repair (GG-NER) remove lesions specifically in germ cells. Here we investigated how genome instability in germ cells affects somatic tissues in C. elegans. We show that exogenous and endogenous DNA damage in germ cells evokes elevated resistance to heat and oxidative stress. The somatic …