Polycomb Group Protein-Mediated Histone Modifications during Cell Differentiation

Abstract

Polycomb group (PcG) proteins play an important role in the regulation of gene expression, especially genes encoding lineage-specific factors. Perturbations in PcG protein expression may trigger an unexpected developmental pathway, resulting in birth defects and developmental disabilities. Two Polycomb repressive complexes, PRC1 and PRC2, have been identified and are related with diverse cellular processes through histone modifications. Many developmental genes are trimethylated at histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3) mediated by PRC2, which provides a binding site for PRC1. These processes contribute to chromatin compaction and transcriptional repression. In this review, we discuss about the complex formation of PcG proteins, the mechanism through which they are recruited to target sites and their functional roles in cell differentiation.

Keywords::

• cell differentiation
• development
• homeobox genes
• PcG recruitment
• Polycomb group proteins

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea (#2011–0030049, #2010–0020259) and BK21 PLUS (10Z20130012243) funded by the Ministry of Education, Korea. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea (#2011–0030049, #2010–0020259) and BK21 PLUS (10Z20130012243) funded by the Ministry of Education, Korea. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.