@inproceedings{8578929,
  abstract     = {{Over the last decade, molecular technologies have evolved into robust high throughput platforms available to many scientists in a wide variety of disciplines. Implementation of these technologies in ecotoxicology and risk assessments have focused on mechanisms of toxicity and stress response on the gene level to explain effects at the organism level. Few studies, however, have used an integrated approach of a suite of molecular technologies, often due to the costs associated with them. Within this study, we have used genomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics to understand the mechanisms of cyanobacterial stress response in Daphnia. Cyanobacteria are a form of natural stress that are associated with the production of a wide range of toxins and are known to adversely affect many zooplankton species. Yet, the exact mechanisms of toxicity in Daphnia are still unclear. We have used cDNA microarrays to study gene expression patterns in different Daphnia clones in response to M. aeruginosa. We exposed different Daphnia clones with different sensitivities to Microcystis. We have used array CGH (Comparative genomic hybridization) to characterize the copy number variation at the DNA level between Daphnia clones with different sensitivities to Microcystis. We used whole genome bisulfite sequencing to characterize the cytosine methylation in response to Microcystis stress. n We observed significant effects of Microcystis on gene expression that were genotype specific. In addition, we also observed significant differential regulation of trypsin isoforms showing a clear interaction effect between genotype and Microcystis. In addition, array CGH revealed 632 genes that showed significant copy number variation between clones sensitive to Microcystis and clones tolerant to Microcystis, including genes involved in oxidative stress and ribosome. Last, bisulfite sequencing indicated a significant differential methylation of 6 gene families including ribosomal proteins. Furthermore, a significant bias was observed for cytosines in coding regions. Indeed, differentially methylated cytosines were significantly more likely to occur in serine and threonine amino acid codons and were significantly less likely to occur in aspartic acid, glycine and histidine codons. Overall, our integrated results suggest a complex mechanistic response of Daphnia to Microcystis characterized by interactions between copy number variation, DNA methylation and gene regulation mechanisms.}},
  author       = {{Asselman, Jana and De Coninck, Dieter and Janssen, Colin and Shaw, Joseph and De Schamphelaere, Karel}},
  booktitle    = {{SETAC Europe, 27th Annual meeting, Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Brussels, Belgium}},
  title        = {{The integrated use of omics technologies to understand mechanisms of Daphnia's stress response to cyanobacteria}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}