{"doi":"10.1093/nar/gkaa1262","title":"A Polycomb repressive complex is required for RNAi-mediated heterochromatin formation and dynamic distribution of nuclear bodies","abstract":"Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are widely utilized for transcriptional repression in eukaryotes. Here, we characterize, in the protist Tetrahymena thermophila, the EZL1 (E(z)-like 1) complex, with components conserved in metazoan Polycomb Repressive Complexes 1 and 2 (PRC1 and PRC2). The EZL1 complex is required for histone H3 K27 and K9 methylation, heterochromatin formation, transposable element control, and programmed genome rearrangement. The EZL1 complex interacts with EMA1, a helicase required for RNA interference (RNAi). This interaction is implicated in co-transcriptional recruitment of the EZL1 complex. Binding of H3K27 and H3K9 methylation by PDD1-another PcG protein interacting with the EZL1 complex-reinforces its chromatin association. The EZL1 complex is an integral part of Polycomb bodies, which exhibit dynamic distribution in Tetrahymena development: Their dispersion is driven by chromatin association, while their coalescence by PDD1, likely via phase separation. Our results provide a molecular mechanism connecting RNAi and Polycomb repression, which coordinately regulate nuclear bodies and reorganize the genome.","journal":"Nucleic Acids Research","year":2021,"id":158726,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":44,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9498,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":668124,"name":"Xiaolu Zhao","orcid":"0000-0003-1535-3880","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":317589,"name":"Fengbiao Mao","orcid":"0000-0003-0852-4266","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":253569,"name":"Venkatesha Basrur","orcid":"0000-0002-0853-9655","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231337,"name":"Beatrix Ueberheide","orcid":"0000-0003-2512-0204","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":51698,"name":"Brian T. Chait","orcid":"0000-0003-3524-557X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":71450,"name":"C. David Allis","orcid":"0000-0001-7589-713X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":607992,"name":"Sean D. Taverna","orcid":"0000-0003-0278-0592","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":286406,"name":"Shan Gao","orcid":"0000-0003-2083-2616","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":668125,"name":"Wei Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-3780-5158","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":668126,"name":"Yifan Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-3896-0002","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":668123,"name":"Jing Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-0373-5120","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":135,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:44:30.791367Z","pmid":"33412588","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}