Is There a Relationship between DNA Methylation and Phenotypic Plasticity in Invertebrates?
- PMID: 22232607
- PMCID: PMC3249382
- DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2011.00116
Is There a Relationship between DNA Methylation and Phenotypic Plasticity in Invertebrates?
Abstract
There is a significant amount of variation in DNA methylation characteristics across organisms. Likewise, the biological role of DNA methylation varies across taxonomic lineages. The complexity of DNA methylation patterns in invertebrates has only recently begun to be characterized in-depth. In some invertebrate species that have been examined to date, methylated DNA is found primarily within coding regions and patterning is closely associated with gene function. Here we provide a perspective on the potential role of DNA methylation in these invertebrates with a focus on how limited methylation may contribute to increased phenotypic plasticity in highly fluctuating environments. Specifically, limited methylation could facilitate a variety of transcriptional opportunities including access to alternative transcription start sites, increasing sequence mutations, exon skipping, and transient methylation.
Keywords: adaptation; epigenetic; methylation; oyster; plasticity.
Figures


Similar articles
-
Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Signatures of Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus during Environmental Induced Aestivation.Genes (Basel). 2020 Aug 31;11(9):1020. doi: 10.3390/genes11091020. Genes (Basel). 2020. PMID: 32877994 Free PMC article.
-
Epigenetic features in the oyster Crassostrea gigas suggestive of functionally relevant promoter DNA methylation in invertebrates.Front Physiol. 2014 Apr 7;5:129. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2014.00129. eCollection 2014. Front Physiol. 2014. PMID: 24778620 Free PMC article.
-
Patterns of DNA methylation in animals: an ecotoxicological perspective.Integr Comp Biol. 2014 Jul;54(1):77-86. doi: 10.1093/icb/icu025. Epub 2014 Apr 29. Integr Comp Biol. 2014. PMID: 24785828 Review.
-
Evolutionary Transition of Promoter and Gene Body DNA Methylation across Invertebrate-Vertebrate Boundary.Mol Biol Evol. 2016 Apr;33(4):1019-28. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msv345. Epub 2015 Dec 29. Mol Biol Evol. 2016. PMID: 26715626 Free PMC article.
-
Ecotoxicological epigenetics in invertebrates: Emerging tool for the evaluation of present and past pollution burden.Chemosphere. 2021 Nov;282:131026. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131026. Epub 2021 Jun 2. Chemosphere. 2021. PMID: 34111635 Review.
Cited by
-
Phenotypic plasticity for improved light harvesting, in tandem with methylome repatterning in reef-building corals.Mol Ecol. 2024 Feb;33(4):e17246. doi: 10.1111/mec.17246. Epub 2023 Dec 28. Mol Ecol. 2024. PMID: 38153177 Free PMC article.
-
Inference of DNA methylation patterns in molluscs.Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021 May 24;376(1825):20200166. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0166. Epub 2021 Apr 5. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2021. PMID: 33813896 Free PMC article.
-
A genomic predictor of lifespan in vertebrates.Sci Rep. 2019 Dec 12;9(1):17866. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54447-w. Sci Rep. 2019. PMID: 31831772 Free PMC article.
-
Air Exposure Affects Physiological Responses, Innate Immunity, Apoptosis and DNA Methylation of Kuruma Shrimp, Marsupenaeus japonicus.Front Physiol. 2020 Mar 12;11:223. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2020.00223. eCollection 2020. Front Physiol. 2020. PMID: 32226395 Free PMC article.
-
Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Signatures of Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus during Environmental Induced Aestivation.Genes (Basel). 2020 Aug 31;11(9):1020. doi: 10.3390/genes11091020. Genes (Basel). 2020. PMID: 32877994 Free PMC article.
References
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources