Table 1.
Sites and functions of histone lysine methylation
| Histone lysine | Function(s) | Histone lysine methyltransferases* |
| H1 K26 | Transcriptional silencing | Hs EZH2 (catalytic subunit of Polycomb repressive complex 3) [3] |
| H3 K4 | Transcriptional activation | Dm Trx; Hs MLL1 (ALL-1, HRX), MLL2 (ALR-1), and MLL3 (HALR) |
| Transcriptional activation and elongation | Hs SET1; Sc SET1 | |
| Transcriptional activation | Hs SET7/9 | |
| Transcriptional activation (in conjunction with ASH1-mediated methylation of H3 K9 and H4 K20) | Dm ASH1 | |
| H3 K9 | Heterochromatic and euchromatic silencing; DNA methylation | Dm Su(var)3-9; Hs and Mm SUVAR39H1 and UVAR39H2; Sp CLR4 |
| Euchromatic silencing; DNA methylation | Hs and Mm G9a; Hs GLP1 (EuHMT1) | |
| Euchromatic silencing | Hs and Mm ESET (SETDB1) | |
| Heterochromatic silencing; DNA methylation | Nc DIM-5 | |
| Heterochromatic silencing; DNA methylation | At KRYPTONITE | |
| Transcriptional activation (in conjunction with ASH1-mediated methylation of H3 K4 and H4 K20) | Dm ASH1 | |
| H3 K27 | Euchromatic silencing | Dm E(z); Hs EZH1 and EZH2 (catalytic subunit of Polycomb repressive complex 2) |
| Euchromatic silencing | Hs and Mm G9a | |
| H3 K36 | Transcriptional elongation and silencing | Sc SET2 |
| Transcriptional regulation | Mm NSD1 | |
| H3 K79 | Demarcation of euchromatin | Sc and Hs DOT1 (a non-SET domain histone lysine methyltransferase) |
| H4 K20 | Cell cycle-dependent silencing, mitosis and cytokinesis [52,53] | Hs and Dm SET8 |
| Heterochromatic silencing | Dm, Mm, and Hs SUV4-20H1 and SUV4-20H2 [48] | |
| Transcriptional regulation | Mm NSD1 | |
| Transcriptional activation (in conjunction with ASH1-mediated methylation of H3 K4 and H3 K9) | Dm ASH1 | |
| Recruitment of checkpoint protein Crb2 to sites of DNA damage | Sp SET9 [49] |
Histone lysine methylation sites, functions, and associated histone lysine methyltransferases, which are listed according to the lysine that they methylate. *Species abbreviations: At, Arabidopsis thaliana; Dm, Drosophila melanogaster; Hs, Homo sapiens; Mm, Mus musculus; Nc, Neurospora crassa; Sc, Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Sp, Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Adapted from [54-56]; additional references listed in the table are those not cited in these reviews.