32 research outputs found
A multi-scale analysis of bull sperm methylome revealed both species peculiarities and conserved tissue-specific
peer-reviewedBackground: Spermatozoa have a remarkable epigenome in line with their degree of specialization, their unique
nature and different requirements for successful fertilization. Accordingly, perturbations in the establishment of DNA
methylation patterns during male germ cell differentiation have been associated with infertility in several species.Background: Spermatozoa have a remarkable epigenResults: The quantification of DNA methylation at CCGG sites using luminometric methylation assay (LUMA)
highlighted the undermethylation of bull sperm compared to the sperm of rams, stallions, mice, goats and men.
Total blood cells displayed a similarly high level of methylation in bulls and rams, suggesting that undermethylation
of the bovine genome was specific to sperm. Annotation of CCGG sites in different species revealed no striking bias
in the distribution of genome features targeted by LUMA that could explain undermethylation of bull sperm. To
map DNA methylation at a genome-wide scale, bull sperm was compared with bovine liver, fibroblasts and
monocytes using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) and immunoprecipitation of methylated DNA
followed by microarray hybridization (MeDIP-chip). These two methods exhibited differences in terms of genome
coverage, and consistently, two independent sets of sequences differentially methylated in sperm and somatic cells
were identified for RRBS and MeDIP-chip. Remarkably, in the two sets most of the differentially methylated
sequences were hypomethylated in sperm. In agreement with previous studies in other species, the sequences that
were specifically hypomethylated in bull sperm targeted processes relevant to the germline differentiation program
(piRNA metabolism, meiosis, spermatogenesis) and sperm functions (cell adhesion, fertilization), as well as satellites
and rDNA repeats.
Conclusions: These results highlight the undermethylation of bull spermatozoa when compared with both bovine
somatic cells and the sperm of other mammals, and raise questions regarding the dynamics of DNA methylation in
bovine male germline. Whether sperm undermethylation has potential interactions with structural variation in the
cattle genome may deserve further attention.
While bull semen is widely used in artificial insemination, the literature describing DNA methylation in bull
spermatozoa is still scarce. The purpose of this study was therefore to characterize the bull sperm methylome
relative to both bovine somatic cells and the sperm of other mammals through a multiscale analysis
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Peak calling data generated on simulated DNA of uniform genome coverage using Samans’ parameter (Table S1, Royo et al. 2016, alignment via Samans’ pipeline) were analyzed for enrichments at RDE classes (50%-overlap/RepeatMasker)
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Peak calling data generated on simulated DNA of uniform genome coverage using Samans’ parameter (Table S1, Royo et al. 2016, alignment via Samans’ pipeline) were analyzed for enrichments at RDE classes (50%-overlap/RepeatMasker).THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV