Polycomb Group

Xist RNA coating of the inactive-X recruits silencing protein complexes. The Polycomb group is a prominent set of proteins recruited to the inactive-X. The Polycomb group proteins post-translationally modify histones, which are then believed to maintain gene silencing across cell division. Like Xist RNA, Polycomb group proteins and the histone modifications they catalyze accumulate on the inactive-X. In the post-implantation female mouse embryo shown above, the red stain detects enrichment of H3K27me3 on the inactive-X. The H3K27me3 enrichment appears more prominent in the extra-embryonic tissues that undergo imprinted X-inactivation compared to the embryonic compartment that is subject to random X-inactivation. The embryonic epiblast cells are identified due to green fluorescence conferred by the mosaic expression of a Gfp transgene on the paternal X chromosome (Xp-Gfp). The extra-embryonic cells are devoid of green fluorescence because of the silencing of Xp-Gfp transgene due to imprinted X-inactivation of the paternal X chromosome.

We have had a long-standing interest in delineating the precise roles of the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) and its catalyzed histone H3K27me3 mark in X-inactivation in both imprinted and random X-inactivation (Kalantry et al., 2006; Kalantry & Magnuson, 2006; Maclary et al., 2017). Ongoing and future projects include both in vivo and in vitro approaches to dissect the function of Polycomb complexes both temporally and lineage-specifically in X-inactivation and beyond.