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Programming of gene expression by Polycomb group proteins.
Journal article

Programming of gene expression by Polycomb group proteins.

  • Köhler C Institute of Plant Sciences and Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Center, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland. koehlerc@ethz.ch
  • Villar CB
  • 2008-04-01
Published in:
  • Trends in cell biology. - 2008
Algorithms
Animals
Cell Differentiation
Chromatin
DNA Methylation
Drosophila melanogaster
Gene Expression
Gene Expression Regulation
Gene Silencing
Histones
Humans
Lysine
Models, Biological
Plant Proteins
Polycomb-Group Proteins
Repressor Proteins
English Polycomb group (PcG) complexes maintain epigenetically repressed states that need to be reprogrammed when cells become committed to differentiation. In contrast to the previously held belief that PcG complexes regulate only a few selected genes, recent efforts have revealed hundreds of potential PcG targets in mammals, insects and plants. These results have changed our perception about PcG recruitment and function on chromatin. Both in animals and plants, evolutionarily conserved PcG complexes mark the chromatin of their target genes by methylation at histone H3 lysine 27. Surprisingly, however, both the proteins recognizing this mark and the mechanisms causing gene repression differ between both kingdoms. This suggests that different developmental strategies used in plant and animal development entailed the evolution of different repressive maintenance mechanisms.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/207939
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