Data from: Ancestry-specific methylation patterns in admixed offspring from an experimental coyote and gray wolf cross

• Main Authors: vonHoldt, Bridgett, Heppenheimer, Elizabeth, Petrenko, Vladimir, Croonquist, Paula, Rutledge, Linda Y.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2017
• Subjects: ancestry; admixture; Methylation; Canis; canid; Holocene; North America; Life sciences; medicine and health care; envir; socio; gray wolf
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.18sg7

Reduced fitness of admixed individuals is typically attributed to genetic incompatibilities. Although mismatched genomes can lead to fitness changes, in some cases the reduction in hybrid fitness is subtle. The potential role of transcriptional regulation in admixed genomes could provide a mechanistic explanation for these discrepancies, but evidence is lacking for non-model organisms.Here, we explored the intersection of genetics and gene regulation in admixed genomes derived from an experimental cross between a western gray wolf and western coyote. We found a significant positive association between methylation and wolf ancestry, and identified outlier genes that have been previously implicated in inbreeding-related, or otherwise deleterious, phenotypes. We describe a pattern of site-specific, rather than genome-wide, methylation driven by inter-specific hybridization. Epigenetic variation is thus suggested to play a non-trivial role in both maintaining and combating mismatched genotypes through putative transcriptional mechanisms. We conclude that the regulation of gene expression is an underappreciated key component of hybrid genome functioning, but could also act as a potential source of novel and beneficial adaptive variation in hybrid offspring. wyoteMeth_10x_3mil_sites_MFThis file contains the methylation frequency (MF, number of cytosines out of the total read coverage) per site for a coyote, wolves, and their hybrid offspring. This dataset contains ~3 million cytosines.Wyotes_15733_GBS_SNPsThis file contains SNP genotypes for 15,733 sites generated by GBS for a coyote, wolves, and their hybrid offspring.