Journal of Molecular Biology

Site-specific histone modifications direct gene transcription in chromatin.

Different histone modifications influence gene transcription outcomes.

Histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27) acetylation (Kac), trimethylation (Kme3), and crotonylation (Kcr), dictate gene transcriptional activation, silence, and repression in chromatin, respectively.

H3K27ac/me3/cr-directed gene transcription represents as a long-awaited verification of the “Histone code hypothesis”.

Site-specific histone modifications have long been recognized to play an important role in directing gene transcription in chromatin in biology of health and disease. However, concrete illustration of how different histone modifications in a site-specific manner dictate gene transcription outcomes, as postulated in the influential “Histone code hypothesis”, introduced by Allis and colleagues in 2000, has been lacking. In this review, we summarize our latest understanding of the dynamic regulation of gene transcriptional activation, silence, and repression in chromatin that is directed distinctively by histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation, methylation, and crotonylation, respectively. This represents a special example of a long-anticipated verification of the “Histone code hypothesis.”

histone modifications

gene transcription

chromatin biology

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