{"doi":"10.17615/09qr-0491","title":"The MES-2/MES-3/MES-6 Complex and Regulation of Histone H3 Methylation in C. elegans","abstract":"The C. elegans proteins MES-2 and MES-6, orthologs of the Polycomb group (PcG) chromatin repressors E(Z) and ESC [1, 2], exist in a complex with their novel partner MES-3 [3]. The MES system participates in silencing the X chromosomes in the hermaphrodite germline [4, 5]. Loss of maternal MES function leads to germline degeneration and sterility [6]. We report here that the MES complex is responsible for di- and trimethylation of histone H3 Lys27 (H3-K27) in the adult germline and in early embryos and that MES-dependent H3-K27 marks are concentrated on the X's. Another H3-K27 HMT functions in adult somatic cells, oocytes, and the PGCs of embryos. In PGCs, the MES complex may specifically convert dimethyl to trimethyl H3-K27. The HMT activity of the MES complex appears to be dependent on the SET domain of MES-2. MES-2 thus joins its orthologs Drosophila E(Z) and human EZH2 among SET domain proteins known to function as HMTs (reviewed in [7]). Methylation of histones is important for long-term epigenetic regulation of chromatin and plays a key role in diverse processes such as X inactivation and oncogenesis [8]. Our results contribute to understanding the composition and roles of E(Z)/MES-2 complexes across species.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2021,"id":230098,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9509,"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":1647,"name":"Yi Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-2789-0811","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":528925,"name":"Ru Cao","orcid":"0000-0003-3776-8008","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":23412,"name":"Susan Strome","orcid":"0000-0001-9496-7412","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":836312,"name":"Laurel B. Bender","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:55:05.844766Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}