Brief Communication abstract


Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 15, 1122 - 1124 (2008)
Published online: 14 September 2008 | doi:10.1038/nsmb.1489

The effect of H3K79 dimethylation and H4K20 trimethylation on nucleosome and chromatin structure

Xu Lu1, Matthew D Simon2, Jayanth V Chodaparambil1, Jeffrey C Hansen1, Kevan M Shokat2,3 & Karolin Luger1,3

Top

Histone methylation regulates chromatin function dependent on the site and degree of the modification. In addition to creating binding sites for proteins, methylated lysine residues are likely to influence chromatin structure directly. Here we present crystal structures of nucleosomes reconstituted with methylated histones and investigate the folding behavior of resulting arrays. We demonstrate that dimethylation of histone H3 at lysine residue 79 locally alters the nucleosomal surface, whereas trimethylation of H4 at lysine residue 20 affects higher-order structure.

Top
  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Colorado State University, 1870 Campus Delivery, 1385 Center Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1870, USA.
  2. Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, 600 16th Street, MC 2280, San Francisco, California 94158-2280, USA.
  3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 4000 Jones Bridge Road, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815-6789, USA.

Correspondence to: Karolin Luger1,3 e-mail: kluger@lamar.colostate.edu



MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Chromatin structure The nucleosome core all wrapped up

Nature News and Views (18 Sep 1997)

The tail does not always wag the dog

Nature Genetics News and Views (01 Oct 2002)

See all 9 matches for News And Views

Extra navigation

Subscribe to Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

Subscribe

Open Innovation Challenges

ADVERTISEMENT