ArticleNature communications2021
Histone H4 lysine 20 mono-methylation directly facilitates chromatin openness and promotes transcription of housekeeping genes.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
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75 citing papers in PubMed.
- KMT5A maintains muscle stem cell quiescence through epigenetic regulation of Notch signaling.iScience · 2026Article
- Molecular dynamics guided all-atom reconstruction of cryo-ET maps reveals mechanisms of histone tail mediated chromatin compaction.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Epigenetics in lung cancer precision medicine: from bench to bedside-a narrative review.Translational lung cancer research · 2026Review
- The reprogramming and function of H4K20me1 during early embryo development.EMBO reports · 2026Article
- Catalytic activity of KMT5B promotes ciliogenesis without affecting global chromatin accessibility.Life science alliance · 2026Article
- Histone Modifications in the Cell Cycle ofEpigenomes · 2026Review
- Discovery of a Potent, Selective, and In Vivo Efficacious Covalent Inhibitor for Lysine Methyltransferase SETD8.Journal of medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- Epigenetic Regulation of Sebaceous and Meibomian Glands: From Development to Disease.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Neural stem cell quiescence is actively maintained by the epigenome.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Epigenetic alterations in Myeloid Malignancies.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- The H4K20-mono-methyltransferase SETD8 promotes global accessibility of infecting herpes simplex virus genomes.Journal of virology · 2025Article
- Local chromatin context informs transcriptional outcomes for the histone demethylase KDM5.Epigenetics & chromatin · 2025Article
- How histone modifications influence cellular radiosensitivity: Pharmaceutically targeting epigenetic regulators as a promising avenue to overcome radioresistance.Acta pharmaceutica Sinica. B · 2025Review
- Histone demethylase KDM9 activates the CCND1/AKT pathway to promote the malignant progression of gliomas through interaction with BRD2.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Article
- Molecular dynamics simulations reveal subtle consequences of H3K9 and H3K27 tri-methylation on chromatin constituents.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Epigenetic Drugs Splitomicin, Suberohydroxamic Acid, CPTH6, BVT-948, and PBIT Moderate Fibro-Fatty Development in Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy.Biomolecules · 2025Article
- Role of vascular smooth muscle phenotypic transformation induced by histone modifications in the development of abdominal aortic aneurysms.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Review
- Mammalian conservation of endogenous G-quadruplex reveals their associations with complex traits.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Interrogating the regulatory epigenome of cellular senescence.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Review
- Histone H4 lysine 20 methylation marks genes dynamically regulated during erythroid maturation.Epigenetics & chromatin · 2025Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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15 authors.
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Abstract
Histone lysine methylations have primarily been linked to selective recruitment of reader or effector proteins that subsequently modify chromatin regions and mediate genome functions. Here, we describe a divergent role for histone H4 lysine 20 mono-methylation (H4K20me1) and demonstrate that it directly facilitates chromatin openness and accessibility by disrupting chromatin folding. Thus, accumulation of H4K20me1 demarcates highly accessible chromatin at genes, and this is maintained throughout the cell cycle. In vitro, H4K20me1-containing nucleosomal arrays with nucleosome repeat lengths (NRL) of 187 and 197 are less compact than unmethylated (H4K20me0) or trimethylated (H4K20me3) arrays. Concordantly, and in contrast to trimethylated and unmethylated tails, solid-state NMR data shows that H4K20 mono-methylation changes the H4 conformational state and leads to more dynamic histone H4-tails. Notably, the increased chromatin accessibility mediated by H4K20me1 facilitates gene expression, particularly of housekeeping genes. Altogether, we show how the methylation state of a single histone H4 residue operates as a focal point in chromatin structure control. While H4K20me1 directly promotes chromatin openness at highly transcribed genes, it also serves as a stepping-stone for H4K20me3-dependent chromatin compaction.
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