Bisulfite sequencing with Daphnia highlights a role for epigenetics in regulating stress response to Microcystis through preferential differential methylation of serine and threonine amino acidsing bi-sulfite treatment

Little is known about the influence that environmental stressors may have on genome-wide methylation patterns, and to what extent epigenetics may be involved in environmental stress response. Yet, studies of methylation patterns under stress could provide crucial insights on stress response and toxicity pathways. Here, we focus on genome-wide methylation patterns in the micro-crustacean Daphnia magna, a model organism in ecotoxicology and risk assessment, exposed to the toxic cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa. Bisulfite sequencing of exposed and control animals highlighted differential methylation patterns in Daphnia upon exposure to Microcystis primarily in exonic regions. These patterns are enriched for serine/threonine amino acid codons and genes related to protein synthesis, transport and degradation. Furthermore, we observed that genes with differential methylation corresponded well with genes susceptible to alternative splicing in response to Microcystis stress. Overall, our results suggest a complex mechanistic response in Daphnia characterized by interactions between DNA methylation and gene regulation mechanisms. These results underscore that DNA methylation is modulated by environmental stress and can also be an integral part of the toxicity response in our study species. Overall design: Examination of cytosine methylation in DNA samples in Daphnia magna following bisulfite treatment. DNA samples were harvested from Daphnia exposed to Microcystis as well as unexposed Daphnia

Identifier
Source https://data.blue-cloud.org/search-details?step=~0125DFEC2139CE5ACF89E0BAB0468A9D64D2F8EB68F
Metadata Access https://data.blue-cloud.org/api/collections/5DFEC2139CE5ACF89E0BAB0468A9D64D2F8EB68F
Provenance
Instrument Illumina HiSeq 2000; ILLUMINA
Publisher Blue-Cloud Data Discovery & Access service; ELIXIR-ENA
Publication Year 2024
OpenAccess true
Contact blue-cloud-support(at)maris.nl
Representation
Discipline Marine Science
Temporal Point 2016-12-19T00:00:00Z