Wang Yu, Jia Songtao
Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Epigenetics. 2009 Jul 1;4(5):273-6. doi: 10.4161/epi.4.5.9212. Epub 2009 Jul 5.
Residue and degree-specific methylation of histone lysines along with other epigenetic modifications organizes chromatin into distinct domains and regulates almost every aspect of DNA metabolism. Identification of histone methyltransferases and demethylases, as well as proteins that recognize methylated lysines, has clarified the role of each methylation event in regulating different biological pathways. Methylation of histone H4 lysine 20 (H4K20me) plays critical roles in diverse cellular processes such as gene expression, cell cycle progression and DNA damage repair, with each of the three degrees of methylation (mono-, di- and tri-methylation) making a unique contribution. Here we discuss recent studies of H4K20me that have greatly improved our understanding of the regulation and function of this fascinating histone modification.
组蛋白赖氨酸的残基特异性和程度特异性甲基化，连同其他表观遗传修饰，将染色质组织成不同的结构域，并调节DNA代谢的几乎每个方面。组蛋白甲基转移酶、去甲基酶以及识别甲基化赖氨酸的蛋白质的鉴定，阐明了每个甲基化事件在调节不同生物学途径中的作用。组蛋白H4赖氨酸20（H4K20me）的甲基化在多种细胞过程中发挥关键作用，如基因表达、细胞周期进程和DNA损伤修复，三种甲基化程度（单甲基化、二甲基化和三甲基化）各自都有独特贡献。在这里，我们讨论了关于H4K20me的最新研究，这些研究极大地增进了我们对这种迷人的组蛋白修饰的调控和功能的理解。
