Abstract
The elongation phase of transcription by RNA polymerase II involves a complex choreography of events besides the polymerization of RNA. In addition to coordinating the processing of the nascent transcript, elongating RNA polymerase II recruits histone methyltransferases to methylate lysines 4 and 36 of histone H3 in nucleosomes in the body of actively transcribed genes. Methylation at these sites is genetically implicated in marking actively transcribed genes. Recent studies link transcriptional elongation by RNA polymerase II to H3K9 methylation and the recruitment of the HP1 family protein HP1γ. These findings expand the role for RNA polymerase II elongation in targeting chromatin modifications to include a histone methyl mark more commonly associated with gene silencing.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 184-190 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Current Opinion in Genetics and Development |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2006 |
Funding
We apologize to the many investigators in the field of chromatin and transcription research whose important work we were unable to cite here owing to space limitations. We thank Drs SCR Elgin and DS Gilmour for critical reading of the manuscript. Work in the Eissenberg laboratory is supported by National Science Foundation grant MCB 0131414. Work in the Shilatifard laboratory is supported by American Cancer Socity grant RP69921801, National Institutes of Health grants 1R01CA089455 and 1R01 GM069905. AS is a Scholar of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics
- Developmental Biology