Comparative analyses of sperm DNA methylomes among three commercial pig breeds reveal vital hypomethylated regions associated with spermatogenesis and embryonic development

This study is the first to report a genome-wide comparative DNA methylation map of adult pig sperm in three commercial pig breeds using WGBS technology. Our results showed that DNA methylation was more conserved in the three commercial pig breeds. Moreover, our results indicated that breed-specific HMRs are related to phenotypic changes and economically complex traits for each breed. The conserved HMRs between pig sperm and testis close to or located in the promoter regions of important genes are mainly involved in DNA repair and spermatogenesis. Investigate the sperm DNA methylomes using WGBS and analyze DNA methylation variation in three commercial pig breeds—Landrace, Duroc, and Yorkshire