RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Phylogenetic profiling resolves early emergence of PRC2 and illuminates its functional core
JF Life Science Alliance
JO Life Sci. Alliance
FD Life Science Alliance LLC
SP e202101271
DO 10.26508/lsa.202101271
VO 5
IS 7
A1 Abdoallah Sharaf
A1 Mallika Vijayanathan
A1 Miroslav Oborník
A1 Iva Mozgová
YR 2022
UL https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/5/7/e202101271.abstract
AB Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is involved in maintaining transcriptionally silent chromatin states through methylating lysine 27 of histone H3 by the catalytic subunit enhancer of zeste [E(z)]. Here, we report the diversity of PRC2 core subunit proteins in different eukaryotic supergroups with emphasis on the early-diverged lineages and explore the molecular evolution of PRC2 subunits by phylogenetics. For the first time, we identify the putative ortholog of E(z) in Discoba, a lineage hypothetically proximal to the eukaryotic root, strongly supporting emergence of PRC2 before the diversification of eukaryotes. Analyzing 283 species, we robustly detect a common presence of E(z) and ESC, indicating a conserved functional core. Full-length Su(z)12 orthologs were identified in some lineages and species only, indicating, nonexclusively, high divergence of VEFS-Box–containing Su(z)12-like proteins, functional convergence of sequence-unrelated proteins, or Su(z)12 dispensability. Our results trace E(z) evolution within the SET-domain protein family, proposing a substrate specificity shift during E(z) evolution based on SET-domain and H3 histone interaction prediction.