Abstract
Copyright: © 2012 Cao F. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The past decade witnessed the significant advancement of our knowledge in chromatin biology. Histone post-translational modifications are linked to different biological pathways. Among various histone modifications, H3 K4 methylation has been proposed as a critical component in regulating gene expression, epigenetic states and cellular identities. It antagonizes the functions of another histone methylation mark H3 K27 methylation by PcG group proteins, to set the chromatin activation state by the developmentally regulated genes. The founding member of the H3 K4 methyltransferase is MLL1 (Mixed Lineage Leukemia protein), which is essential for embryonic development and hematopoiesis. Relatively, its mis-regulation is associated with a variety of diseases including leukemia, multiple myeloma and brain tumors. In the past ten years, there has been an exponential increase in our knowledge regarding the MLL family of H3 K4 methyltransferase, and the biological role of this histone modification from yeast to humans.
Highlights
The past decade witnessed the significant advancement of our knowledge in chromatin biology
MLL has many domains implicated in chromatin functions: starting from N-terminus, a DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) homology domain, four PHD domains (Plant Homeo Domain), one of which was shown to bind H3 K4me3, a bromo-domain, a trans-activation domain (TA) [7] and a C-terminal SET domain
Later studies showed that WDR5 makes direct contact with MLL through a conserved arginine (R3765) residue in the MLL pre-SET domain [12,13], and with RbBP5 to maintain the integrity of the whole complex
Summary
The past decade witnessed the significant advancement of our knowledge in chromatin biology. It antagonizes the functions of another histone methylation mark H3 K27 methylation by PcG group proteins, to set the chromatin activation state by the developmentally regulated genes. In the past ten years, there has been an exponential increase in our knowledge regarding the MLL family of H3 K4 methyltransferase, and the biological role of this histone modification from yeast to humans. Role of MLL Mediated H3 K4 Methylation in Hox Gene Activation and Leukemogenesis
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