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Molecular biology

No exception to reversibility

Nature volume 431, pages 637–638 (2004)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 27 October 2004

Histone proteins, which serve as scaffolds for packaging DNA, can be modified in numerous ways. It's been thought that one modification, methylation, is irreversible — but that view must now change.

Each of our cells contains about two metres or so of DNA, which must be packed down very tightly to fit into the cell nucleus. The compact form of DNA is known as chromatin, the basic unit of which consists of DNA wrapped around an octamer of histone proteins1. The histones are not merely architectural proteins, however: they also influence chromatin dynamics. One way in which they do so is through their covalent modification with certain chemical groups or small proteins — acetyl groups, phosphate groups, ubiquitin proteins or methyl groups2. Enzymes that catalyse the addition or removal of the first three modifications have been identified. But enzymes that remove methyl groups have been more elusive, raising the question of whether methylation is an exception to the rule: the only histone modification that is irreversible3. Two new papers, however — published in Science by Wang et al.4 and in Cell by Cuthbert et al.5 — reverse that view.

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Figure 1: Reversing methylation in histone proteins.

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  1. the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, 27599-7295, North Carolina, USA

    Yi Zhang

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  1. Yi Zhang
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Zhang, Y. No exception to reversibility. Nature 431, 637–638 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/431637a

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