The Cytoplasm Affects the Epigenome in Drosophila melanogaster

Epigenomes

Voigt, Susanne¹  Dowling, Damian K.²  Grunau, Christoph³  Dobler, Ralph⁴ 

[1] Applied Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany;Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed;IHPE UMR 5244, University Perpignan Via Domitia, CNRS, IFREMER, University Montpellier, F-66860 Perpignan, France;School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia

关键词: epigenetics;    mitochondria;    mito-nuclear coevolution;   

DOI  :  10.3390/epigenomes2030017

学科分类：分子生物学，细胞生物学和基因

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Cytoplasmic components and their interactions with the nuclear genome may mediate patterns of phenotypic expression to form a joint inheritance system. However, proximate mechanisms underpinning these interactions remain elusive. To independently assess nuclear genetic and epigenetic cytoplasmic effects, we created a full-factorial design in which representative cytoplasms and nuclear backgrounds from each of two geographically disjunct populations of Drosophila melanogaster were matched together in all four possible combinations. To capture slowly-accumulating epimutations in addition to immediately occurring ones, these constructed populations were examined one year later. We found the K4 methylation of histone H3, H3K4me3, an epigenetic marker associated with transcription start-sites had diverged across different cytoplasms. The loci concerned mainly related to metabolism, mitochondrial function, and reproduction. We found little overlap (<8%) in sites that varied genetically and epigenetically, suggesting that epigenetic changes have diverged independently from any cis-regulatory sequence changes. These results are the first to show cytoplasm-specific effects on patterns of nuclear histone methylation. Our results highlight that experimental nuclear-cytoplasm mismatch may be used to provide a platform to identify epigenetic candidate loci to study the molecular mechanisms of cyto-nuclear interactions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY