title: [Progress in the study of histone methyltransferases].
abstract: Site- and state-specific lysine methylation of histones is catalyzed by a family of proteins including those contain the evolutionarily conserved SET domain. Research on histone methyltransferases is a part of epigenetics, which plays a fundamental role in heterochromatin formation, X-chromosome inactivation and transcription regulation. Aberrant histone methylation was linked to a number of developmental disorders and human disease including several carcinomas. Histone lysine methylation is a functionally complex process, as it can either activate or repress transcription, depending on sequence-specific lysine methylation site in histones. Non-histone proteins were found to be methylated by SET domain-containing histone methyltransferases whose primary targets were presumed to be histones. The researches on histone methyltransferases will make a completely new space for transcriptional activity, embryonic development, cell differentiation, and signal transduction.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China. xieping@hupo.org.cn
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Chun-Yan
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Ling-Qiang
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Li-Guo
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Fu-Chu
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D000076983:Histone Methyltransferases; D011495:Histone-Lysine N-Methyltransferase; D006657:Histones / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008745:Methylation; D008954:Models, Biological; D011496:Protein Methyltransferases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D006657:Histones; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; D000076983:Histone Methyltransferases; D011496:Protein Methyltransferases; D011495:Histone-Lysine N-Methyltransferase