Effects of a parental exposure to diuron on Pacific oyster spat methylome

Environmental epigenetic is an emerging field that studies the cause–effect relationship between environmental factors and heritable trait via an alteration in epigenetic marks. This field has received much attentions since the impact of environmental factors on different epigenetic marks have been shown to be associated with a broad range of phenotypic disorders in natural ecosystems. Chemical pollutants have been shown to affect immediate epigenetic information carriers of several aquatic species but the heritability of the chromatin marks and the consequences for long term adaptation remain open questions. In this work, we investigated the impact of the diuron herbicide on the DNA methylation pattern of spat from exposed Crassotrea gigas genitors. This oyster is one of the most important mollusk species produced worldwide and a key coastal economic resource in France. The whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS, BS-Seq) was applied to obtain a methylome at single nucleotide resolution on DNA extracted from spat issued from diuron exposed genitors comparatively to control spat. We showed that the parental diuron exposure has an impact on the DNA methylation pattern of its progeny. Most of the differentially methylated regions occurred within coding sequences and we showed that this change in methylation level correlates with RNA level only in a very small group of genes. Although the DNA methylation profile is variable between individuals, we showed conserved DNA methylation patterns in response to parental diuron exposure. This relevant result opens perspectives for the setting of new markers based on epimutations as early indicators of marine pollutions.