Long-lasting effects of temperature on DNA methylation of muscle and testis of the European Sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax).

Abstract

Temperature during sensitive developmental windows has long-lasting effects on gene expression (Díaz and Piferrer, 2015) and functional processes, such as reproduction and muscle growth (Jonsson and Jonsson, 2014). These effects are mediated, at least partly, at the molecular level by epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation. Changes of DNA methylation patterns associated with the early developmental temperature a fish experiences have been observed in the gonads at the gene (Navarro-Martín et al., 2011) and at the genome-wide level (Shao et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2016), while in the muscle changes have been observed at least at the gene level (Campos et al., 2013). In this study, we used the European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) as a model to study the longlasting effects of temperature experienced during early development on the methylome and the transcriptome of adult fish