Abstract
Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation are well known as connected with many important biological processes. Rapid accumulating evidence shows environmental stress can generate particular defense epigenetic changes across generations in eukaryotes. This transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in animals and plants has gained interest over the last years. Cyanobacteria play very crucial role in the earth, and as the primary producer they can adapt to nearly all diverse environments. However, few knowledge about the genome wide epigenetic information such as methylome information in cyanobacteria, especially under any environment stress, was reported so far. In this study we profiled the genome-wide cytosine methylation from a model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, and explored the possibility of transgenerational epigenetic process in this ancient single-celled prokaryote by comparing the DNA methylomes among normal nitrogen medium cultivation, nitrogen starvation for 72 h and nitrogen recovery for about 12 generations. Our results shows that DNA methylation patterns in nitrogen starvation and nitrogen recovery are much more similar with each other, significantly different from that of the normal nitrogen. This study reveals the difference in global DNA methylation pattern of cyanobacteria between normal and nutrient stress conditions and reports the evidence of transgenerational epigenetic process in cyanobacteria. The results of this study may contribute to a better understanding of epigenetic regulation in prokaryotic adaptation to and survive in the ever changing environment.
Highlights
Epigenetic modifications, heritable chemical additions to DNA or histones which are associated with gene expression but do not alter the primary DNA sequence, are well known as connected with many important processes (Law and Jacobsen, 2010)
About 1.5, 1.76, and 2.06 Gb clean data with read length longer than 125 bp were generated for NC, nitrogen starved for 72 h (N72), and nitrogen recovered (NR), respectively, and the sequencing depth reached 380×
96,961 sites for methylcytosine were identified in the Synechocystis genome, including 62,415, 18,057, and 16,489 in CHH, CG, and CHG context (H represents any nucleotide except guanine), respectively
Summary
Epigenetic modifications, heritable chemical additions to DNA or histones which are associated with gene expression but do not alter the primary DNA sequence, are well known as connected with many important processes (Law and Jacobsen, 2010). DNA methylation is one of the most important epigenetic modifications and catalyzed by DNAspecific methyltransferase which transfers methyl group from general substrate, S-adenosylmethionine, to specific DNA sequences. This epigenetic modification is usually related to regulation of gene expression, genomic imprinting, X chromosome inactivation, chromosome stability and so on in eukaryotes (Feng et al, 2010). M4C can show partially resistance to the bisulfitemediated deamination, WGBS could be used to identify both m5C and m4C (Vilkaitis and Klimasauskas, 1999)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
