Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

Domestication of animals and artificial selection of their phenotypes, along with adaptation of the animals towards their captive environment have rapidly driven the evolution of the selected animals. One example is the chicken (Gallus gallus), that has evolved from wild Red Junglefowl to tame domesticated fowl such as White Leghorns. This tremendously rapid domestication over the span of just a few generations and the genetic changes causing gene expression differences can most likely not be explained solely by single random mutations in all affected phenotypes.
New data indicate that epigenetics and the epigenome might have more of an effect than previously anticipated, and one mechanism that is of particular interest is DNA methylation. DNA methylation is a common genomic modification among eukaryotes, and in vertebrates and plants with large genomes the phenomenon of global methylation of the genome is widespread. Any environmental changes will require the genome to carefully orchestrate its transcriptional output in order for the organism to be able to adapt, and unlike the rigid DNA sequence, the genome's epigenetic status can change much more dynamically.
Scientist Conrad Waddington proposed that acquired characters, or phenotypically plastic traits as we know them today, may become converted into inherited characters if selection acts on them for many generations. Nätt and Lindqvist have both done studies on stress and inheritance, and both studies eliminated animal traditions, suggesting that transgenerational epigenetic inheritance are responsible for the expression differences. The most likely candidates are context-dependent effects (hormonal influences) or germ-line dependent effects, such as aforementioned methylations.

The aim of this study was to investigate methylation differences between White Leghorn and Red Junglefowl using bisulfite conversion of DNA and methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting (MSHRM).