Abstract
Methylation of histone H3 at lysine 9 (H3K9) is a hallmark of heterochromatin that plays crucial roles in gene silencing, genome stability, and chromosome segregation. In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Clr4 mediates both di- and tri-methylation of H3K9. Although H3K9 methylation has been intensely studied in mitotic cells, its role during sexual differentiation remains unclear. Here, we map H3K9 methylation genome-wide during meiosis and show that constitutive heterochromatin temporarily loses H3K9me2 and becomes H3K9me3 when cells commit to meiosis. Cells lacking the ability to tri-methylate H3K9 exhibit meiotic chromosome segregation defects. Finally, the H3K9 methylation switch is accompanied by differential phosphorylation of Clr4 by the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdk1. Our results suggest that a conserved master regulator of the cell cycle controls the specificity of an H3K9 methyltransferase to prevent ectopic H3K9 methylation and to ensure faithful gametogenesis.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e55928 |
Journal | EMBO Reports |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 1 |
Number of pages | 13 |
ISSN | 1469-221X |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
Keywords
- chromosome segregation
- fission yeast
- histone methylation
- meiosis
- phosphorylation