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Revolution in the Polycomb hierarchy

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Traditionally, maintenance of gene silencing by the Polycomb group proteins has been thought to involve recruitment of Polycomb repressive complex (PRC) 1 by PRC2-mediated trimethylation of K27 on histone H3. Three recent studies challenge this model by demonstrating that monoubiquitination of histone H2A, which is catalyzed by PRC1 complexes, can recruit PRC2 and potentiate its catalytic activity.

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Figure 1: Hierarchical models for recruitment of Polycomb group complexes to target genes.
Figure 2: Mechanisms underlying recruitment of Polycomb group proteins to target genes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Itys Comet and Kristian Helin are at the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Centre for Epigenetics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.,

    Itys Comet & Kristian Helin

  2. Kristian Helin is also at the Danish Stem Cell Center (DanStem), Copenhagen, Denmark.,

    Kristian Helin

Authors
  1. Itys Comet
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  2. Kristian Helin
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Correspondence to Kristian Helin.

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Competing interests

I.C. declares no competing financial interests. K.H. is a cofounder of EpiTherapeutics Aps, is a member of the EpiTherapeutics board of directors and has shares and warrants in the company.

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Comet, I., Helin, K. Revolution in the Polycomb hierarchy. Nat Struct Mol Biol 21, 573–575 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2848

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