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Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication
BACKGROUND: In contrast to wild species, which have typically evolved phenotypes over long periods of natural selection, domesticates rapidly gained human-preferred agronomic traits in a relatively short-time frame via artificial selection. Under domesticated conditions, many traits can be observed...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3852238/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24059350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-646 |
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author | Xiang, Hui Li, Xin Dai, Fangyin Xu, Xun Tan, Anjiang Chen, Lei Zhang, Guojie Ding, Yun Li, Qiye Lian, Jinmin Willden, Andrew Guo, Qiuhong Xia, Qingyou Wang, Jun Wang, Wen |
author_facet | Xiang, Hui Li, Xin Dai, Fangyin Xu, Xun Tan, Anjiang Chen, Lei Zhang, Guojie Ding, Yun Li, Qiye Lian, Jinmin Willden, Andrew Guo, Qiuhong Xia, Qingyou Wang, Jun Wang, Wen |
author_sort | Xiang, Hui |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: In contrast to wild species, which have typically evolved phenotypes over long periods of natural selection, domesticates rapidly gained human-preferred agronomic traits in a relatively short-time frame via artificial selection. Under domesticated conditions, many traits can be observed that cannot only be due to environmental alteration. In the case of silkworms, aside from genetic divergence, whether epigenetic divergence played a role in domestication is an unanswered question. The silkworm is still an enigma in that it has two DNA methyltransferases (DNMT1 and DNMT2) but their functionality is unknown. Even in particular the functionality of the widely distributed DNMT1 remains unknown in insects in general. RESULTS: By embryonic RNA interference, we reveal that knockdown of silkworm Dnmt1 caused decreased hatchability, providing the first direct experimental evidence of functional significance of insect Dnmt1. In the light of this fact and those that DNA methylation is correlated with gene expression in silkworms and some agronomic traits in domesticated organisms are not stable, we comprehensively compare silk gland methylomes of 3 domesticated (Bombyx mori) and 4 wild (Bombyx mandarina) silkworms to identify differentially methylated genes between the two. We observed 2-fold more differentiated methylated cytosinces (mCs) in domesticated silkworms as compared to their wild counterparts, suggesting a trend of increasing DNA methylation during domestication. Further study of more domesticated and wild silkworms narrowed down the domesticates’ epimutations, and we were able to identify a number of differential genes. One such gene showing demethyaltion in domesticates correspondently displays lower gene expression, and more interestingly, has experienced selective sweep. A methylation-increased gene seems to result in higher expression in domesticates and the function of its Drosophila homolog was previously found to be essential for cell volume regulation, indicating a possible correlation with the enlargement of silk glands in domesticated silkworms. CONCLUSIONS: Our results imply epigenetic influences at work during domestication, which gives insight into long time historical controversies regarding acquired inheritance. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3852238 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38522382013-12-06 Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication Xiang, Hui Li, Xin Dai, Fangyin Xu, Xun Tan, Anjiang Chen, Lei Zhang, Guojie Ding, Yun Li, Qiye Lian, Jinmin Willden, Andrew Guo, Qiuhong Xia, Qingyou Wang, Jun Wang, Wen BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: In contrast to wild species, which have typically evolved phenotypes over long periods of natural selection, domesticates rapidly gained human-preferred agronomic traits in a relatively short-time frame via artificial selection. Under domesticated conditions, many traits can be observed that cannot only be due to environmental alteration. In the case of silkworms, aside from genetic divergence, whether epigenetic divergence played a role in domestication is an unanswered question. The silkworm is still an enigma in that it has two DNA methyltransferases (DNMT1 and DNMT2) but their functionality is unknown. Even in particular the functionality of the widely distributed DNMT1 remains unknown in insects in general. RESULTS: By embryonic RNA interference, we reveal that knockdown of silkworm Dnmt1 caused decreased hatchability, providing the first direct experimental evidence of functional significance of insect Dnmt1. In the light of this fact and those that DNA methylation is correlated with gene expression in silkworms and some agronomic traits in domesticated organisms are not stable, we comprehensively compare silk gland methylomes of 3 domesticated (Bombyx mori) and 4 wild (Bombyx mandarina) silkworms to identify differentially methylated genes between the two. We observed 2-fold more differentiated methylated cytosinces (mCs) in domesticated silkworms as compared to their wild counterparts, suggesting a trend of increasing DNA methylation during domestication. Further study of more domesticated and wild silkworms narrowed down the domesticates’ epimutations, and we were able to identify a number of differential genes. One such gene showing demethyaltion in domesticates correspondently displays lower gene expression, and more interestingly, has experienced selective sweep. A methylation-increased gene seems to result in higher expression in domesticates and the function of its Drosophila homolog was previously found to be essential for cell volume regulation, indicating a possible correlation with the enlargement of silk glands in domesticated silkworms. CONCLUSIONS: Our results imply epigenetic influences at work during domestication, which gives insight into long time historical controversies regarding acquired inheritance. BioMed Central 2013-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3852238/ /pubmed/24059350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-646 Text en Copyright © 2013 Xiang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Xiang, Hui Li, Xin Dai, Fangyin Xu, Xun Tan, Anjiang Chen, Lei Zhang, Guojie Ding, Yun Li, Qiye Lian, Jinmin Willden, Andrew Guo, Qiuhong Xia, Qingyou Wang, Jun Wang, Wen Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title | Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title_full | Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title_fullStr | Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title_full_unstemmed | Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title_short | Comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
title_sort | comparative methylomics between domesticated and wild silkworms implies possible epigenetic influences on silkworm domestication |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3852238/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24059350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-14-646 |
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