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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #347465
Research Project: Enhancing Genetic Merit of Ruminants Through Improved Genome Assembly, Annotation, and Selection

Location: Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory

Title: Genome-wide sequencing and comparative profiling of cattle sperm DNA methylome reveals its hypomethylated patterns

Author
item ZHOU, YANG - Huazhong Agricultural University
item Connor, Erin
item Bickhart, Derek
item Li, Congjun - Cj
item Baldwin, Ransom - Randy
item Schroeder, Steven - Steve
item Rosen, Benjamin - Ben
item YANG, LIGUO - Huazhong Agricultural University
item Van Tassell, Curtis - Curt
item Liu, Ge - George

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/1/2017
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS), we profiled the DNA methylome of cattle sperms through comparison with three bovine somatic tissues (mammary grand, brain and blood). Large differences between them were observed in the methylation patterns of global CpGs, pericentromeric satellites, partially methylated domains (PMDs), hypomethylated regions (HMRs) and common repeats. We detected selective hypomethylation of megabase domains of centromeric satellite clusters in sperms, which may be related with chromosome segregation during meiosis and their rapid transcriptional activation upon fertilization. We found more PMDs in the sperms than in the somatic tissues and identified sperm meiosis-related genes like KIF2B and REPIN1. Besides the common HMRs around gene promoters which showed substantial differences, the sperm-specific HMRs also targeted to distinct spermatogenesis-related genes, including BOLL, ASZ1, MAEL, PLD6, CTCFL, SYCP3, SYCE1, MND1, SPATA22, and DDX4. Although common repeats were heavily methylated, some hypomethylated repeats were enriched in gene promoters with large variations among tissues. For example, some young Bov-A2 repeats, which belong to the SINE family, were hypomethylated and could affect the promoter structures by introducing new regulatory elements. Our study provides a comprehensive resource for bovine sperm epigenomic research and enables new discoveries about DNA methylation and its role in male fertility.