Epigenetic inheritance and genome regulation: is DNA methylation linked to ploidy in haplodiploid insects?

ABSTRACT: Organisms show great variation in ploidy level. For example, chromosome copy number varies among cells, individuals and species. One particularly widespread example of ploidy variation is found in haplodiploid taxa, wherein males are typically haploid and females are typically diploid. Despite the prevalence of haplodiploidy, the regulatory consequences of having separate haploid and diploid genomes are poorly understood. In particular, it remains unknown whether epigenetic mechanisms contribute to regulatory compensation for genome dosage. To gain greater insights into the importance of epigenetic information to ploidy compensation, we examined DNA methylation differences among diploid queen, diploid worker, haploid male and diploid male Solenopsis invicta fire ants. Surprisingly, we foun

SUBMITTER: Glastad KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4024298 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature