The Arginine Methyltransferase PRMT6 Cooperates with Polycomb Proteins in Regulating HOXA Gene Expression

PLoS One. 2016 Feb 5;11(2):e0148892. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148892. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Protein arginine methyltransferase 6 (PRMT6) catalyses asymmetric dimethylation of histone H3 at arginine 2 (H3R2me2a), which has been shown to impede the deposition of histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) by blocking the binding and activity of the MLL1 complex. Importantly, the genomic occurrence of H3R2me2a has been found to coincide with histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), a repressive histone mark generated by the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2). Therefore, we investigate here a putative crosstalk between PRMT6- and PRC-mediated repression in a cellular model of neuronal differentiation. We show that PRMT6 and subunits of PRC2 as well as PRC1 are bound to the same regulatory regions of rostral HOXA genes and that they control the differentiation-associated activation of these genes. Furthermore, we find that PRMT6 interacts with subunits of PRC1 and PRC2 and that depletion of PRMT6 results in diminished PRC1/PRC2 and H3K27me3 occupancy and in increased H3K4me3 levels at these target genes. Taken together, our data uncover a novel, additional mechanism of how PRMT6 contributes to gene repression by cooperating with Polycomb proteins.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Differentiation / genetics
  • Cell Line
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • HEK293 Cells
  • Histones / metabolism
  • Homeodomain Proteins / genetics*
  • Homeodomain Proteins / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Neurons / cytology
  • Neurons / metabolism
  • Nuclear Proteins / genetics
  • Nuclear Proteins / metabolism
  • Nuclear Proteins / physiology*
  • Polycomb-Group Proteins / metabolism
  • Polycomb-Group Proteins / physiology*
  • Protein-Arginine N-Methyltransferases / genetics
  • Protein-Arginine N-Methyltransferases / metabolism
  • Protein-Arginine N-Methyltransferases / physiology*

Substances

  • Histones
  • Homeodomain Proteins
  • Nuclear Proteins
  • Polycomb-Group Proteins
  • HoxA protein
  • PRMT6 protein, human
  • Protein-Arginine N-Methyltransferases

Grants and funding

This work was supported by German Research Foundation/ Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (http://www.dfg.de), grant no. TRR81 (project 3), BA2292/1-3. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.