Embryonic development elicits waves of methylation and demethylation in Acroporid corals

Recent epigenetic studies on model organisms (plants and animals), marine molluscs and on fish underlie the importance of the epigenetic mechanism characterization during development. Thus, our picture of epigenetic regulation in gametes and during embryogenesis of aquatic organisms is really limited to few species. While evidence of non-genetic coral acclimation has started to emerge, very few studies focus on coral gametes and embryos. Here, we characterized for the first time in corals (and outside of model organisms for DNA 5fC and RNA 5mC) epigenetics patterns of DNA 5-methylcytosine (DNA 5mC), DNA 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (DNA 5hmC), DNA 5-Formylcytosine (DNA 5fC); RNA 5-methylcytosine (RNA 5mC), throughout Acroporid embryogenesis for A. hyacinthus, A. cytherea, A. retusa, and A. pulchra.