Fig. 2

The numbers and locations of regions of differential methylation (mtDMRs) in response to sex and stress. A The location of regions of differential cytosine methylation (mtDMRs) across the mitochondrial genome of pineal gland mitochondria resulting from circadian disruption (Stress). Within the 4 pairwise statistical comparisons, regions of hypo (blue) and hyper (red) methylation relate to our pairwise statistical comparisons; Male control vs. female control (MC vs. FC), male stress vs. female stress (MS vs. FS), male control vs. male stress (MC vs. MS) and female control vs. female stress (FC vs. FS). Coding regions within the heavy strand (mtDNA genes, above line) and light strand (mtDNA genes, below line) of the mitochondrial DNA are displayed for reference, with subunits of the same electron transport complexes shown in the same colour. tRNAs are shown in purple. Boxes around regions of differential methylation indicate the presence of sequence motifs associated with HNF4 (solid box), ATF4/ZNF324 (dashed box) or both (dot and dashed box). Letters within each window represent the nature of the mtDMR. a = sex-specific mtDMRs unrelated to stress, b = mtDMRs with identical responses in males and females, c = mtDMRs differing in the control and stress of one sex only, d = mtDMRs different across all statistical comparisons. B Venn diagram showing the mtDMRs which are lost, gained or remain between MC vs. FC and MS vs. FS, representing sex-specific stress-related regions (gained/lost) and sex-specific, stress-independent regions (remained). C A Venn diagram showing the numbers of mtDMRs which are either unique or present across our pairwise statistical comparisons