Epigenetic variation plays a role in developmental gene regulation, response to the environment,
and in natural variation of gene expression levels. The purpose of the study is to investigate
cytosine methylation and secondary compounds of lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) among
cutting-propagated cultivar Erntedank (ED) and its tissue-culture plants (NC, LC). This was
analyzed by using Methylation Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) where the primers
were cleaved in cytosine residues at 5'-CCGG-3' sites in CpG-islands. In leaf regenerants (LC1),
we observed highest methylated sites from all primer combinations (108 bands), with their highest
variation in secondary metabolites. We measured that tissue-cultured plants showed higher
methylation bands than maternal plants. For instance, we identified the mother plant ED exhibited
79 bands of methylation, which is comparatively low. On the other hand, we observed the highest
total phenolic content in (NC3) but LC1 represents low phenolic content. Our study showed more
methylation in micropropagated plants (NC1, NC2, NC3 and LC1) than those derived from ED
cutting cultivar where methylation was not present. On the contrary, we observed higher
secondary metabolites in cutting cultivar ED but comparatively less in micropropagated plants
(NC1, NC2, NC3 LC1). Hence, our study confirmed that higher methylation sites observed in
micropropagated plants and less amount of secondary metabolites appears
