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Mackenzie Gavery, Claire Olson, Steven Roberts

School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle WA.
email [email protected]

There is an amazing amount of diversity incorporated into the genome of oysters and other marine invertebrates including vastly expanded gene families, high mutation rates, and numerous mobile elements. These are certainly a benefit to broadcast spawners living in fluctuating environments. Recent work examining DNA methylation is revealing new insight into similar diversity at the epigenetic level. The function of DNA methylation in species such as bivalves where the limited amount of DNA methylation is predominantly found in gene bodies is not completely understood. One emerging possible explanation is that the role of gene body DNA methylation is dependent on gene function, a potential phenomenon that has arisen from selective pressure on lineage-specific life history traits.
With respect to commercially important traits, we know that in other taxa epigenetic marks are associated with phenotypes independent of genetic variation, the environment can influence DNA methylation, and epigenetic marks can be inherited. In shellfish, we are still learning about role of epigenetic processes such as DNA methylation in controlling the phenome. However it does appear that epigenetic processes will be important to consider in future efforts to advance aquaculture, particularly in changing environments.

Annotated Bibliography
Gavery MR and Roberts SB. (2014) A context specific role for DNA methylation in bivalves Briefings in Functional Genomics. doi:10.1093/bfgp/elt054 https://goo.gl/YrnzXi

• A review of current knowledge of DNA methylation in bivalves. A primary conclusion is that the functional role of the gene could influence the role of DNA methylation in influencing expression.

Claire E. Olson, Steven B. Roberts. Indication of family-specific DNA methylation patterns in developing oysters bioRxiv doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/012831

• This study provides the first single-base pair resolution DNA methylomes for both oyster sperm and larval samples from multiple crosses. While sample sizes are very low, this work suggests DNA methylation patterns could be inherited.

Roberts, Steven (2015): Compilation of DNA Methylation Genome Feature Tracks (Crassostrea gigas). figshare. https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1456226.v2

• Genome feature tracks and accompanying IGV session file to visualize DNA methyation data for the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas).