Atmosphere and room temperature plasma alters the m6A methylome profiles and regulates gene expression associated with color mutation in clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris)

Since the release of movie Finding Nemo, clownfish have been known and loved by many people. Clownfish a very vivid skin color extreme ornamental value. However, there are few species clownfish, which greatly limits breeding new varieties. In this study, Atmosphere room temperature plasma (ARTP) method was used to treat clownfish-fertilized eggs successfully screened out mutants that exhibited change from black red in their offspring. To elucidate molecular mechanism underlying mutation, more than 17,000 methylated peaks were obtained via m6A-specific RNA immunoprecipitation with next-generation sequencing (MeRIP-seq). These modification sites mainly distributed around stop codons, number corresponding genes exceeded 10,000. Further (RNA-seq) before after mutation performed identified 883 significant differences between two samples, among 152 interaction showed m6A level gene expression level. The results functional analysis phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)-serine/threoninekinase (Akt) pathway its related signal pathways may play an important role change. particular, such as mitogen activated protein kinase 1 ( MAP2K1) , insulin―like growth factor―l IGF1 ), fibroblast factor FGF1 ) key roles accumulation melanin homeobox-protein-encoding empty spiracles homeobox 2 EMX2 mesenchyme MEOX2 be for determining regions pigment. Our provide reference genetic lay foundation further understanding body changes clownfish.