New role for phosphorylation in heterochromatin
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
A great many cellular processes are switched on or off by the modification of a given enzyme or other protein by addition of a phosphate molecule, known as phosphorylation. This regulatory activity occurs widely in the cytoplasm, but can take place in the nucleus as well. Recent work has shown the HP1α, a protein that guides the formation of heterochromatin, a form of the DNA-protein structure know as chromatin, is also subject to this post-translational modification, but the biological meaning of this event has remained unresolved.