Ventós-Alfonso Alba, Ylla Guillem, Montañes Jose-Carlos, Belles Xavier
Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Passeig Marítim 37, 08003, Barcelona, Spain.
iScience. 2020 Nov 5;23(12):101778. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101778. eCollection 2020 Dec 18.
The influence of DNA methylation on gene behavior and its consequent phenotypic effects appear to be very important, but the details are not well understood. Insects offer a diversity of DNA methylation modes, making them an excellent lineage for comparative analyses. However, functional studies have tended to focus on quite specialized holometabolan species, such as wasps, bees, beetles, and flies. Here, we have studied DNA methylation in the hemimetabolan insect . In this cockroach, a gene involved in DNA methylation, () is expressed in early embryogenesis. In our experiments, RNAi of reduces DNA methylation and impairs blastoderm formation. Using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing and transcriptome analyses, we observed that methylated genes are associated with metabolism and are highly expressed, whereas unmethylated genes are related to signaling and show low expression. Moreover, methylated genes show greater expression change and less expression variability than unmethylated genes.
DNA甲基化对基因行为及其后续表型效应的影响似乎非常重要，但具体细节尚不清楚。昆虫具有多种DNA甲基化模式，使其成为进行比较分析的优良谱系。然而，功能研究往往集中在一些非常特殊的全变态昆虫物种上，如黄蜂、蜜蜂、甲虫和苍蝇。在这里，我们研究了半变态昆虫中的DNA甲基化。在这种蟑螂中，一个参与DNA甲基化的基因（）在胚胎发育早期表达。在我们的实验中，对该基因进行RNA干扰会降低DNA甲基化并损害胚盘形成。通过简化代表性亚硫酸氢盐测序和转录组分析，我们观察到甲基化基因与代谢相关且高度表达，而未甲基化基因与信号传导相关且表达水平较低。此外，甲基化基因比未甲基化基因表现出更大的表达变化和更小的表达变异性。
