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Inhibitory protein puts a lid on an epigenetic marker

Two reports examine how a protein complex that adds transcription-repressing marks to histone proteins is potently inhibited by the protein EZHIP during the maturation of sperm and egg cells and in a type of brain cancer.
By
  1. Sergi Aranda

    1. Sergi Aranda is at the Center for Genomic Regulation and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona 08003, Spain.

  2. Luciano Di Croce

    1. Luciano Di Croce is at the Center for Genomic Regulation and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona 08003, Spain, at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, and at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.

How can a single genome generate specialized cells at the correct time and place in multicellular organisms? Gene-expression programs that are specific to different cell types are regulated by the addition and removal of chemical groups, known as epigenetic marks, to and from chromatin — the compact protein–DNA complex in which the genome is organized. Two papers in Nature Communications (one by Ragazzini et al.1 and the other by Jain et al.2), together with recent studies3–5, show how a protein called EZHIP can regulate and disrupt the addition of a major epigenetic mark by the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) during certain biological events and in a type of cancer.

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Nature 573, 38-39 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02521-8

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