Immune genes, IL1β and Casp9, show sexual dimorphic methylation patterns in zebrafish gonads

Abstract

Highlights  DNA methylation profiles of two immune genes IL1 and Casp9 present sexual dimorphism in adult gonad of zebrafish with higher methylation levels in the testes when compared to the ovaries.  Sex-biased differences in methylation profiles need to be taken into account when analyzing immune responses in fish.  IL1 gene expression differs between ovaries and testes, being higher in male gonadal tissue.  An inverse, although not significant, correlation was found between DNA methylation and gene expression levels,  IL1 and Casp9 might be two potential epimarkers to predict sexual dimorphic DNA methylation profiles in fish gonads.

Development of epigenetic biomarkers for the identification of sex and thermal stress in fish using DNA methylation analysis and machine learning procedures

“…Without exception, all genes coding for steroidogenic enzymes analysed in this study exhibited sex-dimorphic DNA methylation. In a similar manner, this observation was found previously in two immune-related genes in adult zebrafish gonads (Caballero-Huertas et al, 2020). The gene cyp11a1…”

Epigenetic differences in the innate response after immune stimulation during zebrafish sex differentiation

“…The rest of the CpG sites showed similar methylation levels between control and LPS groups. In adult zebrafish, dimorphic differences in the methylation patterns of IL1β between ovaries and testes were observed (Caballero-Huertas et al, 2020). Strikingly, all CpGs studied in the mature zebrafish gonads showed significant dimorphic differences except for the CpG9 site, in which similar methylation levels were found in both sexes.…”

“…Methylation levels of larvae at 15 dpf treated 3 h with P. aeruginosa LPS at 150 μg ml were studied for three immune genes i.e., IL1β, CASP9 and TNFα by MBS technique following the procedures described elsewhere in (Anastasiadi et al, 2018b;Caballero-Huertas et al, 2020). Briefly, genomic DNA from five larvae for each group was extracted by 1 μg of proteinase K (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, Missouri) overnight at 65 °C and the following day, a standard phenol-chloroform-isoamyl alcohol protocol with ribonuclease A (PureLink RNase A, Life Technologies) was performed and bisulphite converted.…”

Sex determination mechanisms and sex control approaches in aquaculture animals

“…As a result of natural selection and sexual selection during the evolutionary process (Berns, 2013;Bonduriansky and Chenoweth, 2009;Laporte et al, 2018), sexual dimorphism is the consequence of sexbiased gene expression not only on the sex chromosomes but also on the autosomes (Dean and Mank, 2014;Grath and Parsch, 2016;Mank, 2017;Parsch and Ellegren, 2013;Snell and Turner, 2018;Williams and Carroll, 2009). A great range of sex dimorphisms have been studied in vertebrates, such as metabolism (Hedrington and Davis, 2015;Palmer and Clegg, 2015), immunity (Caballero-Huertas et al, 2020;Rubtsova et al, 2015), and social behaviors (Bayless and Shah, 2016).…”