Wen Lu, Tang Fuchou
Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, PR China.
Genomics. 2014 Nov;104(5):341-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2014.08.020. Epub 2014 Sep 7.
DNA methylation (5-methylcytosine, 5mC) is involved in many cellular processes and emerges as an important epigenetic player in brain development and memory formation. The recent discovery that 5mC can be oxidized to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) by TET (Ten-Eleven-Translocation) proteins provides novel insights into the dynamic character of 5mC in the brain. The content of 5hmC is remarkably high in the brain, adding further complexity. In this review, we discuss how recent advances have improved our understanding of the possible biological roles of 5hmC and TET proteins in the brain. These advances attribute to various approaches, including the genome-wide approach to map 5hmC in different genomic contexts, the gene knockout/knockdown approach to elucidate the functions of TET proteins and 5hmC, and the biochemical approach to uncover potential 5hmC readers.
DNA甲基化（5-甲基胞嘧啶，5mC）参与许多细胞过程，并成为大脑发育和记忆形成中重要的表观遗传因子。最近发现TET（十一易位）蛋白可将5mC氧化为5-羟甲基胞嘧啶（5hmC），这为大脑中5mC的动态特性提供了新的见解。5hmC在大脑中的含量非常高，这进一步增加了复杂性。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了最近的进展如何增进了我们对5hmC和TET蛋白在大脑中可能的生物学作用的理解。这些进展归功于各种方法，包括在不同基因组背景下绘制5hmC的全基因组方法、阐明TET蛋白和5hmC功能的基因敲除/敲低方法，以及揭示潜在5hmC识别蛋白的生化方法。
