|
1
|
Prell A, Sen MO, Potabattula R, Bernhardt L, Dittrich M, Hahn T, Schorsch M, Zacchini F, Ptak GE, Niemann H, Haaf T. Species-Specific Paternal Age Effects and Sperm Methylation Levels of Developmentally Important Genes. Cells 2022; 11:cells11040731. [PMID: 35203380 PMCID: PMC8870257 DOI: 10.3390/cells11040731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2021] [Revised: 01/11/2022] [Accepted: 02/15/2022] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
A growing number of sperm methylome analyses have identified genomic loci that are susceptible to paternal age effects in a variety of mammalian species, including human, bovine, and mouse. However, there is little overlap between different data sets. Here, we studied whether or not paternal age effects on the sperm epigenome have been conserved in mammalian evolution and compared methylation patterns of orthologous regulatory regions (mainly gene promoters) containing both conserved and non-conserved CpG sites in 94 human, 36 bovine, and 94 mouse sperm samples, using bisulfite pyrosequencing. We discovered three (NFKB2, RASGEF1C, and RPL6) age-related differentially methylated regions (ageDMRs) in humans, four (CHD7, HDAC11, PAK1, and PTK2B) in bovines, and three (Def6, Nrxn2, and Tbx19) in mice. Remarkably, the identified sperm ageDMRs were all species-specific. Most ageDMRs were in genomic regions with medium methylation levels and large methylation variation. Orthologous regions in species not showing this age effect were either hypermethylated (>80%) or hypomethylated (<20%). In humans and mice, ageDMRs lost methylation, whereas bovine ageDMRs gained methylation with age. Our results are in line with the hypothesis that sperm ageDMRs are in regions under epigenomic evolution and may be part of an epigenetic mechanism(s) for lineage-specific environmental adaptations and provide a solid basis for studies on downstream effects in the genes analyzed here.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Prell
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
| | - Mustafa Orkun Sen
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
| | - Ramya Potabattula
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
| | - Laura Bernhardt
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
| | - Marcus Dittrich
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
- Department of Bioinformatics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Thomas Hahn
- Fertility Center, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany; (T.H.); (M.S.)
| | | | - Federica Zacchini
- PERCUROS BV, 2333 CL Leiden, The Netherlands;
- Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Krakow, Poland;
- Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King’s College London, London SE1 1UL, UK
| | - Grazyna Ewa Ptak
- Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Krakow, Poland;
| | - Heiner Niemann
- Clinic for Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Medical University Hannover, 30625 Hannover, Germany;
| | - Thomas Haaf
- Institute of Human Genetics, Julius Maximilians University, 97074 Würzburg, Germany; (A.P.); (M.O.S.); (R.P.); (L.B.); (M.D.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +49-931-3188738
| |
Collapse
|