Associations between nucleosome phasing, sequence asymmetry, and tissue-specific expression in a set of inbred Medaka species

Centromere evolution and CpG methylation during vertebrate speciation

Centromeres and large-scale structural variants evolve and contribute to genome diversity during vertebrate speciation. Here, we perform de novo long-read genome assembly of three inbred medaka strains that are derived from geographically isolated subpopulations and undergo speciation. Using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing, we obtain three chromosome-mapped genomes of length ~734, ~678, and ~744Mbp with a resource of twenty-two centromeric regions of length 20-345kbp. Centromeres are positionally conserved among the three strains and even between four pairs of chromosomes that were duplicated by the teleost-specific whole-genome duplication 320-350 million years ago. The centromeres do not all evolve at a similar pace; rather, centromeric monomers in non-acrocentric chromosomes evolve significantly faster than those in acrocentric chromosomes. Using methylation sensitive SMRT reads, we uncover centromeres are mostly hypermethylated but have hypomethylated sub-regions that acquire unique sequence compositions independently. These findings reveal the potential of non-acrocentric centromere evolution to contribute to speciation.

Centromere evolution and CpG methylation during vertebrate speciation

Centromeres and large-scale structural variants evolve and contribute to genome diversity during vertebrate speciation. Here, we perform de novo long-read genome assembly of three inbred medaka strains that are derived from geographically isolated subpopulations and undergo speciation. Using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing, we obtain three chromosome-mapped genomes of length ~734, ~678, and ~744Mbp with a resource of twenty-two centromeric regions of length 20–345kbp. Centromeres are positionally conserved among the three strains and even between four pairs of chromosomes that were duplicated by the teleost-specific whole-genome duplication 320–350 million years ago. The centromeres do not all evolve at a similar pace; rather, centromeric monomers in non-acrocentric chromosomes evolve significantly faster than those in acrocentric chromosomes. Using methylation sensitive SMRT reads, we uncover centromeres are mostly hypermethylated but have hypomethylated sub-regions that acquire unique sequence compositions independently. These findings reveal the potential of non-acrocentric centromere evolution to contribute to speciation.

Centromeres and large-scale structural variants evolve and contribute to genome diversity during vertebrate speciation. Here Ichikawa et al perform de novo long-read genome assembly of three inbred medaka strains, and report long-range structure of centromeres and their methylation as well as correlation of structural variants with differential gene expression.

Hypomethylated domain-enriched DNA motifs prepattern the accessible nucleosome organization in teleosts

Background

Gene promoters in vertebrate genomes show distinct chromatin features such as stably positioned nucleosome array and DNA hypomethylation. The nucleosomes are known to have certain sequence preferences, and the prediction of nucleosome positioning from DNA sequence has been successful in some organisms such as yeast. However, at gene promoters where nucleosomes are much more stably positioned than in other regions, the sequence-based model has failed to work well, and sequence-independent mechanisms have been proposed.

Results

Using DNase I-seq in medaka embryos, we demonstrated that hypomethylated domains (HMDs) specifically possess accessible nucleosome organization with longer linkers, and we reassessed the DNA sequence preference for nucleosome positioning in these specific regions. Remarkably, we found with a supervised machine learning algorithm, k-mer SVM, that nucleosome positioning in HMDs is accurately predictable from DNA sequence alone. Specific short sequences (6-mers) that contribute to the prediction are specifically enriched in HMDs and distribute periodically with approximately 200-bp intervals which prepattern the position of accessible linkers. Surprisingly, the sequence preference of the nucleosome and linker in HMDs is opposite from that reported previously. Furthermore, the periodicity of specific motifs at hypomethylated promoters was conserved in zebrafish.

Conclusion

This study reveals strong link between nucleosome positioning and DNA sequence at vertebrate promoters, and we propose hypomethylated DNA-specific regulation of nucleosome positioning.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13072-017-0152-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Comparative Analysis of Genome and Epigenome in Closely Related Medaka Species Identifies Conserved Sequence Preferences for DNA Hypomethylated Domains

The genomes of vertebrates are globally methylated, but a small portion of genomic regions are known to be hypomethylated. Although hypomethylated domains (HMDs) have been implicated in transcriptional regulation in various ways, how a HMD is determined in a particular genomic region remains elusive. To search for DNA motifs essential for the formation of HMDs, we performed the genome-wide comparative analysis of genome and DNA methylation patterns of the two medaka inbred lines, Hd-rRII1 and HNI-II, which are derived from northern and southern subpopulations of Japan and exhibit high levels of genetic variations (SNP, ∼ 3%). We successfully mapped > 70% of HMDs in both genomes and found that the majority of those mapped HMDs are conserved between the two lines (common HMDs). Unexpectedly, the average genetic variations are similar in the common HMD and other genome regions. However, we identified short well-conserved motifs that are specifically enriched in HMDs, suggesting that they may play roles in the establishment of HMDs in the medaka genome.