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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Drug Discov Today. 2011 Sep 16;16(23-24):1007–1018. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2011.09.008

Figure 2.

Figure 2

The relationship between DNA methylation, histone modifications and miRNA. DNA methylation-caused chromatin silencing can be facilitated by the coupling action of covalent modifications of histone and vice versa. Interactions between histone deacetylases (HDAC), histone methyltransferases (HMT) and methyl CpG-binding proteins (MBD) lead to the recruitment of DNA methyltransferases (DNMT). miRNAs can suppress protein expression by increasing the degradation of mRNAs. Additionally, miRNAs can modulate gene transcriptional activities via their regulation of HMT, MBD, HDAC and DNMT. Furthermore, miRNA genes themselves are also targeted by epigenetic modifications. Abbreviations: AC, acetylation; H3K4, histone H3 lysine 4; H3K9, histone H3 lysine 9; Me, methylation.