Prof. Jae-Seong Lee (Department of Biological Sciences) Discovers
Epigenetic Plasticity is Related to Copepod’s Ocean Acidification Adaptation
[Image] (from the left) Prof. Jae-Seong Lee, Dr. Yeong-Hwan Lee (first co-author and corresponding author), Min Sub Kim (first co-author)
Prof. Jae-Seong Lee (Department of Biological Sciences)’s research team (Dr. Yeong-Hwan Lee (first co-author and corresponding author) and Combined Master’s & Ph.D. program course Min Sub Kim (first co-author)) revealed the relationship between epigenetic plasticity and copepod’s recovery process after multiple generations of negative reproduction due to exposal to ocean acidification.
The research team asserted that the oceans are becoming more acidic as atmospheric CO2 densities are increasing and such acidification of oceans will have a great impact on the ocean’s ecosystem. Among many issues, a noticeable decrease in the copepod’s reproductive ability is observed which in the long term will affect the sustainability of the species and the nutritional epidemiology aspect of the ocean ecosystem.
The research team proceeded multigeneration ocean acidification exposure experiment using Paracyclopina nana, which resulted in the discovery that negative change and sex ratio observed in the parent’s generation (F0) were not observed in the subsequent generations (F2 and afterward). Ocean epigenetics is gathering attention as the method for analyzing marine organisms’ fast adaptation process in dynamic ocean environments. Thus, by using copepods which has a short period of one generation (about 2 weeks), the team investigated DNA methylation pattern and transcriptome changes due to ocean acidification and through observation in vivo experiments, analyzed the epigenetic role inherent in the recovery of reproductive ability.
The research team showed that DNA methylation-level epigenetic modification can play an important role in the adaptation of copepods to future climate changes and also emphasized the necessity for considering epigenetic plasticity when assessing copepod’s future vulnerability to environmental stress caused by CO2 increase.
Prof. Lee, said, “This research overcame technological utility limits of small sized nonmodeled species (smaller than 0.6mm) and has its significance in revealing the causality between copepod’s multigeneration exposure to ocean acidification and epigenetic transformation along with their functional result analysis. We can expect some research in functional relevance of DNA methylation for tracking environment parameters that affect development & growth of the marine organism.”
This research was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries' Multi-Department Genomic Project, Marine Biotics Development Project and Korea Research Foundation’s Support for basic and Mid-sized Research Projects. The research results are published online in a global academic journal for the environment field, the Nature Clime Change (IF 28.660, JCR top 0.78%, 1/127) on September 29th (Thu.)
* Paper Title: Epigenetic plasticity enables copepods to cope with ocean acidification
* DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01477-4
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