Heterochromatin: did H3K9 methylation evolve to tame transposons?

[...]it is so well designed for the task of controlling foreign genes that one may wonder whether the function of chromatin in immunity was its raison d’être [3]. In modern eukaryotes, the silencing functions of chromatin are carried out by three systems: the methylation of H3K9 (the lysine residue...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGenome Biology Vol. 22; no. 1; p. 325
Main Authors Kabi, Manisha, Filion, Guillaume J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England BioMed Central 03.12.2021
BMC
Subjects
Adapter proteins
Animals
Chromatin
Cytosine
DNA Methylation
DNA Transposable Elements
Epigenetics
Eukaryota
Evolution
Gene expression
Genomes
Heterochromatin
Histone H3
Histones
Humans
Lysine
Protein Processing, Post-Translational
Transposons
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Summary:[...]it is so well designed for the task of controlling foreign genes that one may wonder whether the function of chromatin in immunity was its raison d’être [3]. In modern eukaryotes, the silencing functions of chromatin are carried out by three systems: the methylation of H3K9 (the lysine residue at position 9 of histone H3), the methylation of H3K27 (the lysine residue at position 27 of histone H3), and the methylation of cytosine in the genome [5]. [...]the rise of non-LTR retrotransposons at the origin of eukaryotes and the omnipresent association between H3K9 methylation and repeated sequences in modern eukaryotic genomes suggest that heterochromatin allowed eukaryotes to repress transposons.
Bibliography:SourceType-Other Sources-1
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ISSN:1474-760X
1474-7596
1474-760X
DOI:10.1186/s13059-021-02550-5