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Epigenetics

Reversing the 'irreversible'

Nature volume 450, pages 357–359 (2007)Cite this article

“Do not speak — unless it improves on silence” is generally wise advice, and is even vital for a subset of essential genes. New studies describe how, when appropriate, the silence of these genes is broken.

In cellular tissues, it is essential that certain genes are turned on in appropriate cells but remain silent in others. For years, the dogma has been that some forms of gene silencing are irreversible, or at least extremely stable. One such form of silencing is mediated by the Polycomb group of proteins, which repress gene expression partly by altering the structure of chromatin — complexes of DNA and histone proteins. Such repression can be achieved by, for example, adding a specific molecular tag to a histone. Five papers1,2,3,4,5, including one by Jepsen et al.1 on page 415 of this issue, now describe how enzymatic removal of one molecular tag reverses the silencing of gene expression that is mediated by the Polycomb group.

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Figure 1: Reversal of Polycomb-group silencing by demethylases.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard S. Jones is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275-0376, USA. rjones@smu.edu,

    Richard S. Jones

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  1. Richard S. Jones
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Jones, R. Reversing the 'irreversible'. Nature 450, 357–359 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/450357a

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