Newly identified DNA methyltransferases of Ixodes ricinus ticks

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Authors

KOTSARENKO Kateryna VECHTOVA Pavlina HAMMEROVÁ Zuzana LANGOVÁ Natália MALINOVSKÁ Lenka WIMMEROVÁ Michaela STERBA Jan GRUBHOFFER Libor

Year of publication 2020
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases
MU Faculty or unit

Central European Institute of Technology

Citation
Web https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877959X19301992?via%3Dihub
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ttbdis.2019.101348
Keywords DNA methylation; Methyltransferase; 5-Methylcytosine; N6-Methyladenine; Epigenetics; Ixodes tick
Description DNA methylation at the fifth position of cytosine (5mC) and at the sixth position of adenine (6 mA) plays an important role in the regulation of the gene expression and, in eukaryotes, is essential for normal development. For Ixodes ricinus, the most common European arthropod vector of human and animal pathogens, the DNA methylation profile and the role of DNA methylation in tick development are still under discussion. Our goal was to analyze the status of I. ricinus DNA methylation at different life stages and identify enzymes that produce this type of DNA modification. We found that 5mC and 6mA are present in I. ricinus genomic DNA at all life stages. In the transcriptome of I. ricinus, we identified the sequences of the putative IrDNMT1, IrDNMT3, and IrDAMT enzymes, and bioinformatic analysis and three-dimensional modeling predicted their DNA methylation activity. This confirms that I. ricinus possesses a complete DNA methylation toolkit. Our results suggest that DNA methylation is important for the physiology and transstadial development of ticks.
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