Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Blvd, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4
Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Blvd, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4.
Proc Biol Sci. 2017 Oct 11;284(1864). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1667.
Epigenetic mechanisms such as changes in DNA methylation have the potential to affect the resilience of species to climate change, but little is known about the response of the methylome to changes in environmental temperature in animals. Using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing, we assessed the effects of development temperature and adult acclimation temperature on DNA methylation levels in threespine stickleback (). Across all treatments, we identified 2130 differentially methylated cytosines distributed across the genome. Both increases and decreases in temperature during development and with thermal acclimation in adults increased global DNA methylation levels. Approximately 25% of the differentially methylated regions (DMRs) responded to both developmental temperature and adult thermal acclimation, and 50 DMRs were common to all treatments, demonstrating a core response of the epigenome to thermal change at multiple time scales. We also identified differentially methylated loci that were specific to a particular developmental or adult thermal response, which could facilitate the accumulation of epigenetic variation between natural populations that experience different thermal regimes. These data demonstrate that thermal history can have long-lasting effects on the epigenome, highlighting the role of epigenetic modifications in the response to temperature change across multiple time scales.
表观遗传机制,如 DNA 甲基化的变化,有可能影响物种对气候变化的适应能力,但对于动物中甲基组对环境温度变化的响应知之甚少。本研究使用简化重亚硫酸盐测序,评估了发育温度和成年适应温度对三刺鱼()DNA 甲基化水平的影响。在所有处理中,我们鉴定出 2130 个分布在基因组中的差异甲基化胞嘧啶。在发育过程中和成年热适应过程中,温度的升高和降低都会增加全基因组的 DNA 甲基化水平。大约 25%的差异甲基化区域(DMR)对发育温度和成年热适应都有响应,50 个 DMR 存在于所有处理中,这表明在多个时间尺度上,基因组对热变化的核心响应。我们还鉴定出了特定于特定发育或成年热响应的差异甲基化基因座,这可能有助于在经历不同热环境的自然种群中积累表观遗传变异。这些数据表明,热历史会对表观基因组产生持久的影响,凸显了表观遗传修饰在跨多个时间尺度响应温度变化中的作用。