Dataset Information

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

ABSTRACT: 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.

ORGANISM(S): Daphnia magna

PROVIDER: GSE83407 | GEO | 2016/12/16

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA325816

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:"Gene response profiles for Daphnia pulex exposed to the environmental stressor cadmium reveals novel crustacean metallothioneins." Joseph.R.Shaw, John.K.Colbourne, Jennifer.C.Davey, Stephen.P.Glaholt, Thomas.H.Hampton, Celia.Y.Chen, Carol.L.Folt, Joshua.W.Hamilton (BMC Genomics 2007). Genomic research tools such as microarrays are proving to be important resources to study the complex regulation of genes that respond to environmental perturbations. A first generation cDNA microarray was developed for the environmental indicator species Daphnia pulex, to identify genes whose regulation is modulated following exposure to the metal stressor cadmium. Our experiments revealed interesting changes in gene transcription that suggest their biological roles and their potentially toxicological features in responding to this important environmental contaminant. Our microarray identified genes reported in the literature to be regulated in response to cadmium exposure, suggested functional attributes for genes that share no sequence similarity to proteins in the public databases, and pointed to genes that are likely members of expanded gene families in the Daphnia genome. Genes identified on the microarray also were associated with cadmium induced phenotypes and population-level outcomes that we experimentally determined. A subset of genes regulated in response to cadmium exposure was independently validated using quantitative-realtime (Q-RT)-PCR. These microarray studies led to the discovery of three genes coding for the metal detoxication protein metallothionein (MT). The gene structures and predicted translated sequences of D. pulex MTs clearly place them in this gene family. Yet, they share little homology with previously characterized MTs. The genomic information obtained from this study represents an important first step in characterizing microarray patterns that may be diagnostic to specific environmental contaminants and give insights into their toxicological mechanisms, while also providing a practical tool for evolutionary, ecological, and toxicological functional gene discovery studies. Advances in Daphnia genomics will enable the further development of this species as a model organism for the environmental sciences. Keywords: cDNA microarrays, stress response, expressed sequence tags (EST), Daphnia Genomics Consortium, Arthropod, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Expression Regulation

Dataset Information

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

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure