The Polycomb group protein EZH2 directly controls DNA methylation - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2006 Feb 16;439(7078):871-4.

doi: 10.1038/nature04431. Epub 2005 Dec 14.

Carmen Brenner, Rachel Deplus, Loïc Blanchon, Mario Fraga, Céline Didelot, Lluis Morey, Aleyde Van Eynde, David Bernard, Jean-Marie Vanderwinden, Mathieu Bollen, Manel Esteller, Luciano Di Croce, Yvan de Launoit, François Fuks

Affiliations

The Polycomb group protein EZH2 directly controls DNA methylation

Emmanuelle Viré et al. Nature. 2006.

Erratum in

Abstract

The establishment and maintenance of epigenetic gene silencing is fundamental to cell determination and function. The essential epigenetic systems involved in heritable repression of gene activity are the Polycomb group (PcG) proteins and the DNA methylation systems. Here we show that the corresponding silencing pathways are mechanistically linked. We find that the PcG protein EZH2 (Enhancer of Zeste homolog 2) interacts-within the context of the Polycomb repressive complexes 2 and 3 (PRC2/3)-with DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) and associates with DNMT activity in vivo. Chromatin immunoprecipitations indicate that binding of DNMTs to several EZH2-repressed genes depends on the presence of EZH2. Furthermore, we show by bisulphite genomic sequencing that EZH2 is required for DNA methylation of EZH2-target promoters. Our results suggest that EZH2 serves as a recruitment platform for DNA methyltransferases, thus highlighting a previously unrecognized direct connection between two key epigenetic repression systems.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

Cited by

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources