Genome-wide methylome stability and parental effects in the worldwide distributed Lombardy poplar

Bibtex

@misc{ff855859-aaac-443f-bf41-450688bc8edf,
title = "Genome-wide methylome stability and parental effects in the worldwide distributed Lombardy poplar",
abstract = "Background: Despite the increasing number of epigenomic studies in plants, little is known about the forces that shape the methylome in long-lived woody perennials. The Lombardy poplar offers an ideal opportunity to investigate the impact of the individual environmental history of trees on the methylome. Results: We present the results of three interconnected experiments on Lombardy poplar. In the first experiment, we investigated methylome variability during a growing season and across vegetatively reproduced generations. We found that ramets collected over Europe and raised in common conditions have stable methylomes in symmetrical CG-contexts. In contrast, seasonal dynamics occurred in methylation patterns in CHH-context. In the second experiment, we investigated whether methylome patterns of plants grown in a non-parental environment correlate with the parental climate. We did not observe a biological relevant pattern that significantly correlates with the parental climate. Finally, we investigated whether the parental environment has persistent carry-over effects on the phenotype of the vegetative offspring. We combined new bud set observations of three consecutive growing seasons with former published bud set data. Using a linear mixed effects analysis, we found a statistically significant but weak short-term, parental carry-over effect on the timing of bud set. However, this effect was negligible compared to the direct effects of the offspring environment. Conclusions: Genome-wide cytosine methylation patterns in symmetrical CG-context are stable in Lombardy poplar and appear to be mainly the result of random processes. In this widespread poplar clone, methylation patterns in CG-context can be used as bio-markers to infer a common ancestor and thus to investigate the recent environmental history of a specific Lombardy poplar. The Lombardy poplar shows high phenotypic plasticity in a novel environment which enabled this clonal tree to adapt and survive all over the temperate regions of the world.",
author = "An Vanden Broeck and Tim Meese and Pieter Verschelde and Karen Cox and Berthold Heinze and Dieter Deforce and Ellen De Meester and Filip Van Nieuwerburgh",
year = "2023",
month = mar,
day = "15",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.14.532102",
language = "English",
publisher = "Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory",
address = "Belgium,
type = "Other"
}

Authors