SETD7/9: Proteins and Enzymes

Diverse signal transduction pathways impinging on the N-terminal tails of histones lead to a number of post-translational modifications including acetylation, phosphorylation, poly(ADP-ribosylation), ubiquitination and methylation. These modifications play critical roles in regulating chromatin structure and gene expression. Histone methyltransferases (HMTases) selectively methylate evolutionarily conserved arginine or lysine residues, primarily in the N-terminal tails of histones H3 and H4. Set7/9 is a histone specific HMTase that methylates histone H3 lysine 4. Set7/9 transfers methyl groups to lysine 4 of histone H3 in complex with S-adenosyl-L-methionine. Human Set7/9 is a 336 amino acid protein.