Embryonic DNA methylation remodelling in the chordate Branchiostoma lanceolatum — ASN Events

Embryonic DNA methylation remodelling in the chordate Branchiostoma lanceolatum (#4)

Ozren Bogdanovic 1 2 , Ferdinand Marletaz 3 , Ignacio Maeso 4 , Juan Tena 4 , Elisa de la Calle Mustienes 4 , Manuel Irimia 5 , Hector Escriva 6 , Jose Luis Gomez-Skarmeta 4 , Ryan Lister 1 2 , European Amphioxus Genome Consortium 1 2 3 4 5 6
  1. ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
  2. Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research , Nedlands, WA, Australia
  3. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  4. Centro Andaluz de BiologĂ­a del Desarrollo (CABD) CSIC-UPO-JA, Sevilla, Spain
  5. Department of Systems Biology, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Spain
  6. Laboratoire Arago, CNRS/UPMC, Banyuls sur Mer, France

To be able to fully comprehend the contribution of the epigenome to embryonic development, it is important to understand how various components of the epigenome evolved. To date, a number of studies have thoroughly described various epigenetic mechanisms in both vertebrates and invertebrates, however there is currently a lack of high resolution epigenomic data corresponding to animals that form the invertebrate-vertebrate boundary. To that end, we have sequenced the genome of the European amphioxus (Branchisotoma lanceolatum) and explored various layers of its epigenome. Our whole genome bisulfite sequencing (MethylC-seq) approach revealed that amphioxus displays invertebrate-like, mosaic DNA methylation patterns as previously observed in this genus. Nevertheless, we found significant DNA methylation remodeling events taking place during tissue differentiation, mostly consisting of developmental hypomethylation. This developmental loss of DNA methylation temporally coincides with the activation of the Tet protein orthologue in the amphioxus genome, suggestive of active demethylation. Altogether, our study provides a rich developmental resource for studying epigenome evolution and demonstrates for the first time the existence of embryonic DNA methylation remodeling in an invertebrate chordate.

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