Remnant, Emily J and Ashe, Alyson and Young, Paul E and Buchmann, Gabriele and Beekman, Madeleine and Allsopp, Michael H and Suter, Catherine M and Drewell, Robert A and Oldroyd, Benjamin P (2016) Parent-of-origin effects on genome-wide DNA methylation in the Cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis) may be confounded by allele-specific methylation. BMC Genomics, 17. p. 226. ISSN 1471-2164 (OA)
Preview |
Text
Remnant 2016 Cape honey bee DNA methyl _BMC Genomics OA.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Intersexual genomic conflict sometimes leads to unequal expression of paternal and maternal alleles in offspring, resulting in parent-of-origin effects. In honey bees reciprocal crosses can show strong parent-of-origin effects, supporting theoretical predictions that genomic imprinting occurs in this species. Mechanisms behind imprinting in honey bees are unclear but differential DNA methylation in eggs and sperm suggests that DNA methylation could be involved. Nonetheless, because DNA methylation is multifunctional, it is difficult to separate imprinting from other roles of methylation. Here we use a novel approach to investigate parent-of-origin DNA methylation in honey bees. In the subspecies Apis mellifera capensis, reproduction of females occurs either sexually by fertilization of eggs with sperm, or via thelytokous parthenogenesis, producing female embryos derived from two maternal genomes.
RESULTS
We compared genome-wide methylation patterns of sexually-produced, diploid embryos laid by a queen, with parthenogenetically-produced diploid embryos laid by her daughters. Thelytokous embryos inheriting two maternal genomes had fewer hypermethylated genes compared to fertilized embryos, supporting the prediction that fertilized embryos have increased methylation due to inheritance of a paternal genome. However, bisulfite PCR and sequencing of a differentially methylated gene, Stan (GB18207) showed strong allele-specific methylation that was maintained in both fertilized and thelytokous embryos. For this gene, methylation was associated with haplotype, not parent of origin.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of our study are consistent with predictions from the kin theory of genomic imprinting. However, our demonstration of allele-specific methylation based on sequence shows that genome-wide differential methylation studies can potentially confound imprinting and allele-specific methylation. It further suggests that methylation patterns are heritable or that specific sequence motifs are targets for methylation in some genes.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
| Subjects: | R Medicine > R Medicine (General) |
| Depositing User: | Repository Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Nov 2016 22:07 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Nov 2016 22:07 |
| URI: | https://eprints.victorchang.edu.au/id/eprint/513 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |