Genetically Encoding Nϵ-Methyl-l-lysine in Recombinant Histones

• DOI: 10.1021/ja906603s
• Publication Date: 2009-09-22T16:13:13Z
• Authors: Duy P. Nguyen; Maria M. Garcia Alai; Prashant B. Kapadnis; Heinz Neumann; Jason W. Chin
• Keywords: Histone Methylation; Heterochromatin protein 1

Lysine methylation is an important post-translational modification of histone proteins that defines epigenetic status and controls heterochromatin formation, X-chromosome inactivation, genome imprinting, DNA repair, transcriptional regulation. Despite considerable efforts by chemical biologists to synthesize modified histones for use in deciphering the molecular role these phenomena, no general method exists bearing quantitative site-specific methylation. Here we demonstrate a installation Nε-methyl-l-lysine at defined positions recombinant this investigating dependent binding HP1 full length H3 monomethylated on K9 (H3K9me1). This strategy will find wide application defining mechanisms which orchestrates cellular phenomena.