TY - JOUR T1 - DNA Methylation profiles of diverse <em>Brachypodium distachyon</em> aligns with underlying genetic diversity JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/039602 SP - 039602 AU - SR Eichten AU - T Stuart AU - A Srivastava AU - R Lister AU - JO Borevitz Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/17/039602.abstract N2 - DNA methylation, a common modification of genomic DNA, is known to influence the expression of transposable elements as well as some genes. Although commonly viewed as an epigenetic mark, evidence has shown that underlying genetic variation, such as transposable element polymorphisms, often associate with differential DNA methylation states. To investigate the role of DNA methylation variation, transposable element polymorphism, and genomic diversity, whole genome bisulfite sequencing was performed on genetically diverse lines of the model cereal Brachypodium distachyon. Although DNA methylation profiles are broadly similar, thousands of differentially methylated regions are observed between lines. An analysis of novel transposable element indel variation highlighted hundreds of new polymorphisms not seen in the reference sequence. DNA methylation and transposable element variation is correlated with the genome-wide amount of genetic variation present between samples. However, there was minimal evidence that novel transposon insertion or deletions are associated with nearby differential methylation. This study highlights the importance of genetic variation when assessing DNA methylation variation between samples and provides a valuable map of DNA methylation across diverse re-sequenced accessions of this model cereal species.Reviewer Link to deposited data All data is publicly available in the NCBI short read archive under BioProject PRJNA281014. Data tables are available for download at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBxfoxlBCneNkY1TFJDU29iSUU/view?usp=sharing ER -