DNA methylation difference in the liver of a fish with female-biased sexual-size dimorphism, Ancherythroculter nigrocauda

Abstract

Methylation is one of the most important epigenetic modifications in fishes. However, difference of methylation profiles about fish with sexual-size dimorphism (SSD) is really rear. In this study, we used Methyl-RAD to study the methylation profile in the liver of fish with female-biased SSD, Ancherythroculter nigrocauda. In total, we found 6,83 million methylated cytosine in the whole genome and 4.12 million of them were present in at least 5 samples. We also found the average methylation level for female liver was significantly higher than that of male samples (p = 0.03175). And 1,137 differentially methylated genes (DMGs) were identified, many of which were growth-rate related. These DMGs were enriched in several GO catalogs, such as fatty acid synthase activity (GO:0004312), insulin-like growth factor I binding (GO:0031994), and swimming behavior (GO:0036269). The results in this study provided more insights about the epigenetic role of DNA methylation on growth-related genes’ regulation.