AUTHOR=Luo Juan , Yu Ying , Tian Fei , Zhang Huanmin , Chang Shuang , Song Jiuzhou 

TITLE=DNA Methylation Fluctuation Induced by Virus Infection Differs between MD-resistant and -susceptible Chickens

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=3

YEAR=2012

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2012.00020

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2012.00020

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>Marek’s disease (MD) is a lymphoproliferative disease induced by Marek’s disease virus (MDV) infection. To augment vaccination measures in MD control, host genetic resistant to MD becomes obviously more and more important. To elucidate the mechanism of MD-resistance, most of researches were focused on the genetic differences between resistant and susceptible chickens. However, epigenetic features between MD resistant and susceptible chickens are poorly characterized. Using bisulfite pyrosequencing method, we found some candidate genes have higher promoter methylation in the MD-susceptible (L7<sub>2</sub>) chickens than in the MD-resistant (L6<sub>3</sub>) chickens. The hypermethylated genes, involved in cellular component organization, responding to stimulus, cell adhesion, and immune system process, may play important role in susceptibility to disease by deregulation of these genes. MDV infection induced the expression changes of all three methyltransferases genes (<italic>DNMT1</italic>, <italic>DNMT3a</italic>, and <italic>DNMT3b</italic>) in both lines of chickens. The <italic>DNMT1</italic> was up-regulated in L7<sub>2</sub>, whereas the <italic>DNMT3b</italic> was down-regulated in L6<sub>3</sub> at 21 dpi. Interestingly, a dynamic change of promoter methylation was observed during MDV life cycle. Some genes, including <italic>HDAC9</italic>, <italic>GH</italic>, <italic>STAT1</italic>, <italic>CIITA</italic>, <italic>FABP3</italic>, <italic>LATS2</italic>, and <italic>H2Ac</italic>, showed differential methylation behaviors between the two lines of chickens. In summary, the findings from this study suggested that DNA methylation heterogeneity and MDV infection induced methylation alterations differences existed between the two lines of chickens. Therefore, it is suggested that epigenetic mechanisms may be involved in modulating the resistance and/or susceptibility to MD in chickens.</p>