Conservation and divergence of methylation patterning in plants and animals

ABSTRACT: Cytosine DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic mark present in many eukaryotic organisms. While DNA methylation likely has a conserved role in gene silencing, the levels and patterns of DNA methylation appear to vary drastically among different organisms. Here, we used shotgun genomic bisulfite sequencing (BS-Seq) to compare DNA methylation in eight diverse plant and animal genomes. We found that patterns of methylation are very similar in flowering plants with methylated cytosines detected in all sequence contexts, whereas CG methylation predominates in animals. Vertebrates have methylation throughout the genome except for CpG islands. Gene body methylation is conserved with clear preference for exons in most of the organisms. Furthermore, genes appear to be the major target of methyl

ORGANISM(S): Ciona intestinalis

SUBMITTER: matteo Pellegrini 

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-21152 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress