Genome methylation and regulatory functions for hypoxic adaptation in Tibetan chicken embryos

PeerJ

article

Yawen Zhang¹  Wenyu Gou¹  Jun Ma¹  Hongliang Zhang¹  Ying Zhang¹  Hao Zhang¹ 

[1] National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding/Beijing Key Laboratory for Animal Genetic Improvement, China Agricultural University

关键词: Tibetan chicken;    Hypoxia adaption;    MeDIP-seq;    DNA methylation;    Regulatory genes;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.3891

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Tibetan chickens have unique adaptations to the extreme high-altitude environment that they inhabit. Epigenetic DNA methylation affects many biological processes, including hypoxic adaptation; however, the regulatory genes for DNA methylation in hypoxic adaptation remain unknown. In this study, methylated DNA immunoprecipitation with high-throughput sequencing (MeDIP-seq) was used to provide an atlas of the DNA methylomes of the heart tissue of hypoxic highland Tibetan and lowland Chahua chicken embryos. A total of 31.2 gigabases of sequence data were generated from six MeDIP-seq libraries. We identified 1,049 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) and 695 related differentially methylated genes (DMGs) between the two chicken breeds. The DMGs are involved in vascular smooth muscle contraction, VEGF signaling pathway, calcium signaling pathway, and other hypoxia-related pathways. Five candidate genes that had low methylation (EDNRA, EDNRB2, BMPR1B, BMPRII, and ITGA2) might play key regulatory roles in the adaptation to hypoxia in Tibetan chicken embryos. Our study provides significant explanations for the functions of genes and their epigenetic regulation for hypoxic adaptation in Tibetan chickens.

【 授权许可】

CC BY