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Histone H4 lysine 20 mono methylation at specific genomic sequences induces transcriptional repression
Author(s) -
Veerappan Chendhore Sai,
Congdon Lauren M,
Houston Sabrina I,
Spektor Tanya M,
Rice Judd C
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.833.24
Subject(s) - histone h4 , histone , dna methylation , biology , psychological repression , genetics , gene expression , gene , microbiology and biotechnology
Histone modifications play important roles in all eukaryotic DNA‐templated processes. To gain further biological insights into two of these modifications, the mono‐ and trimethylation of histone H4 lysine 20 (H4K20me1 and H4K20me3), ChIP‐chip was performed to identify their precise locations on human chromosomes 21 and 22. Our findings indicate that H4K20me1 is preferentially enriched within specific genes whereas H4K20me3 is preferentially targeted to repetitive elements, strongly suggesting that H4K20me1 and H4K20me3 are physically and functionally distinct histone modifications. Consistent with this, depletion of H4K20me1 resulted in an ~2‐fold increase in the expression of H4K20me1‐associated genes while no changes in expression were observed in H4K20me3‐associated genes. In addition, we found that H4K20me1‐associated DNA sequences were sufficient to nucleate H4K20me1 and induce repression of a reporter gene in vivo. Our results reveal a new transcriptional regulatory pathway whereby the DNA sequences within specific gene bodies can establish H4K20me1 to induce their repression.