Although the genome-wide DNA demethylation is a hallmark
of mammalian embryogenesis, a controversy surrounds the
question of whether such a phenomenon is general for all vertebrates.
Some studies report the absence of genome-wide demethylation in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and Xenopus (Macleod
et al., 1999; Veenstra and Wolffe, 2001), but others argue for
the existence of genome-wide demethylation in zebrafish
embryos (MacKay et al., 2007; Mhanni and McGowan, 2004).
Here, we chose zebrafish as the model to measure DNA methylomes
at single-base resolution in gametes and early embryos.
We reveal that zebrafish inherit the DNA methylome from sperm.