Role of Polycomb in the control of transposable elements.

Angélique Déléris, Frédéric Berger, Sandra Duharcourt

Trends in genetics : TIG 2021 Oct

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It is generally considered that Polycomb Repressive Complex (PRC)2 deposits the histone mark H3K27me3 on silent protein-coding genes, while transposable elements are repressed by DNA and/or H3K9 methylation. Yet, there is increasing evidence that PRC2 also targets and even silences transposable elements in representatives of several distantly related eukaryotic lineages. In plants and animals, H3K27me3 is present on transposable elements in mutants and specific cell types devoid of DNA methylation. In this Opinion, we summarize the experimental evidence for this phenomenon across the eukaryotic kingdom, and discuss its functional and evolutionary significance. We hypothesize that an ancestral role of Polycomb group (PcG) proteins was to silence transposable elements. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Angélique Déléris, Frédéric Berger, Sandra Duharcourt. Role of Polycomb in the control of transposable elements. Trends in genetics : TIG. 2021 Oct;37(10):882-889