The Effects of Larval Cryopreservation on the Epigenetics of the Pacific Oyster <i>Crassostrea gigas</i>

Abstract

High mortalities and highly variable results during the subsequent development of post-thaw larvae have been widely considered as key issues restricting the application of cryopreservation techniques to support genetic improvement programs and hatchery production in farmed marine bivalve species. To date, few studies have been undertaken to investigate the effects of cryodamage at the molecular level in bivalves. This study is the first to evaluate the effect of larval cryopreservation on the epigenetics of the resultant progenies of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas. The results show that the level of DNA methylation was significantly (p DNMT3b, MeCP2, JmjCA, KDM2 and OSA changed significantly (p MBD2, DNMT1, CXXC1 and JmjD6, did not change at any post-thaw larval developmental stage. For the newly thawed trochophore larvae, the amount of methylated H3K4Me1 and H3K27Me1 significantly changed, and the expression of all Jumonji orthologs, except that of Jumonji5, significantly (p C. gigas.

Keywords

• Pacific oyster
• larval cryopreservation
• DNA methylation
• histone modification
• gene expression