CpG DNA methylation changes during epididymal sperm maturation in bulls

Epigenetics & Chromatin

Research

P. Ajmone Marsan¹  A. Lange Consiglio²  S. Biffani³  A. Stella³  F. Pizzi⁴  F. Turri⁴  Emanuele Capra⁴  B. Lazzari⁵ 

[1] Department of Animal Science, Food and Technology-DIANA, and Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi Research Center on Sustainable Dairy Production-CREI, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 29122, Piacenza, Italy;Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences (DIVAS), Università degli Studi di Milano, 26900, Lodi, Italy;Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council IBBA CNR, 20133, Milano, Italy;Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council IBBA CNR, 26900, Lodi, Italy;Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council IBBA CNR, 26900, Lodi, Italy;Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council IBBA CNR, 20133, Milano, Italy;

关键词: Sperm;    Epididymis;    Methylation;    Bull;    Caput;    Cauda;    Corpus;    Motility;    Sperm kinetics;    Chromatin integrity;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13072-023-00495-6

 received in 2022-11-02, accepted in 2023-05-19,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDuring epididymal transit spermatozoa acquire specific morphological features which enhance their ability to swim in a progressive manner and interact with the oocytes. At the same time, sperm cells undergo specific molecular rearrangements essential for the fertilizing sperm to drive a correct embryo development. To assess epigenetic sperm changes during epididymal maturation, the caput, corpus and cauda epididymis sperm tracts were isolated from eight bulls and characterized for different sperm quality parameters and for CpG DNA methylation using Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) able to identify differentially methylated regions (DMRs) in higher CpG density regions.ResultsCaput sperm showed significant variation in motility and sperm kinetics variables, whereas spermatozoa collected from the corpus presented morphology variation and significant alterations in variables related to acrosome integrity. A total of 57,583 methylated regions were identified across the eight bulls, showing a significantly diverse distribution for sperm collected in the three epididymal regions. Differential methylation was observed between caput vs corpus (n = 11,434), corpus vs cauda (n = 12,372) and caput vs cauda (n = 2790). During epididymal transit a high proportion of the epigenome was remodeled, showing several regions in which methylation decreases from caput to corpus and increases from corpus to cauda.ConclusionsSpecific CpG DNA methylation changes in sperm isolated from the caput, corpus, and cauda epididymis tracts are likely to refine the sperm epigenome during sperm maturation, potentially impacting sperm fertilization ability and spatial organization of the genome during early embryo development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

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