First discovered a gene regulatory factor - demethylase
2024-10-06 15:00:18
Biology Report: Researchers have discovered an enzyme that plays an important role in the regulation of gene expression and shutting down of cells. This new enzyme can help arrange gene activity patterns that in turn determine normal cell function. Destruction of this regulation process can lead to cancer. This discovery was published on the online version of Cell on December 16, 2004 and will be published in the printed version on December 29. The discovery of this enzyme will have a major impact on research in the field of gene regulation. For decades, researchers have speculated that this mysterious enzyme exists in cells, but it has not been confirmed. Now Yang Shi's laboratory has proved its existence for the first time. The discovered enzyme is a histone demethylase that removes the methyl groups added to DNA-bound histones and helps regulate gene activity. Previously it was thought that the methylation of histones was stable and irreversible, but the discovery of this new enzyme suggests that histone methylation makes the gene regulation process more dynamic. This view of Yin and Yang has universal significance in biology, and the research results show that histone methylation is not difficult. It is already known that some histone tags (especially ethyl) are easily added and removed, and these tags help the genes to turn on and off at the right time. However, the addition of methyl groups is thought to be reversed only by destruction or replacement of histones. Part of the reason for this view is that no demethylase has been isolated. Shi Lab stumbled upon this demethylase when studying the function of a novel gene-inhibitory protein. At the time, the researchers put the purified protein in a test tube and decided to put it in methylated histones. He found that this protease can effectively cleave the methyl group and leave intact, unmodified histones. Researchers never thought that the protein they studied turned out to be a mysterious demethylase. This enzyme does not remove all of the methyl groups from histones. It removes only a very specific methyl group on lysine 4 (K4) of histone 3 (H3). H3K4 methylation is related to transcription, so the removal of this group is consistent with the suppression of this gene function. The determination of this demethylase will facilitate the discovery of other demethylases of the same kind. These findings will have an impact on every part of biology. Moreover, the discovery of this enzyme also indicates that this laboratory has already stood upstream in the field of gene regulation research.
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