The influence of parental effects on transcriptomic landscape during early development in brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis, Mitchill).

Parental effects represent an important source of variation in offspring phenotypes. Depending on the specific mechanisms involved, parental effects may be caused to different degrees by either the maternal or the paternal parent, and these effects may in turn act at different stages of development. To detect parental effects acting on gene transcription regulation and length phenotype during ontogeny, the transcriptomic profiles of two reciprocal hybrids from Laval × Rupert and Laval × Domestic populations of brook charr were compared at hatching, yolk sac resorption and 15 weeks after exogenous feeding. Using a salmonid cDNA microarray, our results show that parental effects modulated gene expression among reciprocal hybrids only at the yolk sac resorption stage. In addition, Laval × Domestic and Laval × Rupert reciprocal hybrids differed in the magnitude of theses parental effects, with 199 and 630 differentially expressed transcripts, respectively. This corresponds to a maximum of 18.5% of the analyzed transcripts. These transcripts are functionally related to cell cycle, nucleic acid metabolism and intracellular protein traffic, which is consistent with observed differences associated with embryonic development and growth differences in other fish species. Our results thus illustrate how parental effects on patterns of gene transcription seem dependent on the genetic architecture of the parents. In addition, in absence of transcriptional differences, non-transcript deposits in the yolk sac could contribute to the observed length differences among the reciprocal hybrids before yolk sac resorption.

Linking transcriptomic and genomic variation to growth in brook charr hybrids (Salvelinus fontinalis, Mitchill).

Hybridization can lead to phenotypic differences arising from changes in gene expression patterns or new allele combinations. Variation in gene expression is thought to be controlled by differences in transcription regulation of parental alleles, either through cis- or trans-regulatory elements. A previous study among brook charr hybrids from different populations (Rupert, Laval, and domestic) showing distinct length at age during early life stages also revealed different patterns in transcription regulation inheritance of transcript abundance. In the present study, transcript abundance using RNA-sequencing and quantitative real-time PCR, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes and allelic imbalance were assessed in order to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the observed transcriptomic and differences in length at age among domestic × Rupert hybrids and Laval × domestic hybrids. We found 198 differentially expressed genes between the two hybrid crosses, and allelic imbalance could be analyzed for 69 of them. Among these 69 genes, 36 genes exhibited cis-acting regulatory effects in both of the two crosses, thus confirming the prevalent role of cis-acting regulatory elements in the regulation of differentially expressed genes among intraspecific hybrids. In addition, we detected a significant association between SNP genotypes of three genes and length at age. Our study is thus one of the few that have highlighted some of the molecular mechanisms potentially involved in the differential phenotypic expression in intraspecific hybrids for nonmodel species.

Pervasive sex-linked effects on transcription regulation as revealed by expression quantitative trait loci mapping in lake whitefish species pairs (Coregonus sp., Salmonidae).

Mapping of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) is a powerful means for elucidating the genetic architecture of gene regulation. Yet, eQTL mapping has not been applied toward investigating the regulation architecture of genes involved in the process of population divergence, ultimately leading to speciation events. Here, we conducted an eQTL mapping experiment to compare the genetic architecture of transcript regulation in adaptive traits, differentiating the recently evolved limnetic (dwarf) and benthic (normal) species pairs of lake whitefish. The eQTL were mapped in three data sets derived from an F(1) hybrid-dwarf backcrossed family: the entire set of 66 genotyped individuals and the two sexes treated separately. We identified strikingly more eQTL in the female data set (174), compared to both male (54) and combined (33) data sets. The majority of these genes were not differentially expressed between male and female progeny of the backcross family, thus providing evidence for a strong pleiotropic sex-linked effect in transcriptomic regulation. The subtelomeric region of a linkage group segregating in females encompassed >50% of all eQTL, which exhibited the most pronounced additive effects. We also conducted a direct comparison of transcriptomic profiles between pure dwarf and normal progeny reared in controlled conditions. We detected 34 differentially expressed transcripts associated with eQTL segregating only in sex-specific data sets and mostly belonging to functional groups that differentiate dwarf and normal whitefish in natural populations. Therefore, these eQTL are not related to interindividual variation, but instead to the adaptive and historical genetic divergence between dwarf and normal whitefish. This study exemplifies how the integration of genetic and transcriptomic data offers a strong means for dissecting the functional genomic response to selection by separating mapping family-specific effects from genetic factors under selection, potentially involved in the phenotypic divergence of natural populations.