Novel Enzyme Offers New Look At Gene Regulation
Novel Enzyme Offers New Look At Gene Regulation: "The first enzyme to remove methyl groups from histones, or histone demethylase, was identified last year. This was a breakthrough in the study of histone modifications, but Zhang thought pieces of the puzzle were still missing.
'We hypothesized that there were more demethylase enzymes out there for two reasons,' Zhang said. 'For one, the previous demethylase identified, called LSD1, could not remove a chain of three methyl groups from a histone, or a trimethyl group. Secondly, common baker's yeast does not have LSD1, although it does have proteins adding methyl groups to histones.'"
'We hypothesized that there were more demethylase enzymes out there for two reasons,' Zhang said. 'For one, the previous demethylase identified, called LSD1, could not remove a chain of three methyl groups from a histone, or a trimethyl group. Secondly, common baker's yeast does not have LSD1, although it does have proteins adding methyl groups to histones.'"