An investigation into the significance of histone methylation in various mouse tissue
type: CreativeWork
description: Histone lysine methylation is a post synthetic modification that occurs on the N-terminal tails of histones H3 and H4. This modification occurs at very specific residues, which have been highly conserved throughout evolution. It has been postulated that histone methylation may be involved in the pre-mitotic condensation of chromatin. Others have speculated that it may be involved in transcription. This modification seems to be a general feature of chromatin and occurs in all eukaryotic organisms ranging from mammals to yeast. The functional significance of histone methylation and of proteins in general is still at this stage not very well understood in the first part of this project the levels of histone lysine methylation in various tissues were investigated in order to establish a correlation between the methyl content and cell division, age and differentiation. It was found that the levels of histone lysine methylation were low in the two tissue culture lines that were investigated correlating with the rapid growth rate of these cells. An increase in the histone lysine methylation content was observed when these cells were induced to differentiate. The highest levels of histone lysine methylation were found in brain tissue. Methylation levels in the histones isolated from the mouse and bovine brain tissue are very similar. It was concluded from these results that histone lysine methylation may be linked to the cessation of replication and differentiation of cells. Previous studies on the rate of methylation in rat brain (Lee and Duerre, 1974) have shown that the rate of histone methylation decreases with age of the tissue. It was therefore decided to investigate the rate of histone methylation in nuclei isolated from mouse erythroleukemia (MEL) cells at different stages of differentiation. These cells can be induced to differentiate upon which they cease to replicate and mature into cells that are analogous to red blood cells. The rate of incorporation of radioac…
abstract: Histone lysine methylation is a post synthetic modification that occurs on the N-terminal tails of histones H3 and H4. This modification occurs at very specific residues, which have been highly conserved throughout evolution. It has been postulated that histone methylation may be involved in the pre-mitotic condensation of chromatin. Others have speculated that it may be involved in transcription. This modification seems to be a general feature of chromatin and occurs in all eukaryotic organisms ranging from mammals to yeast. The functional significance of histone methylation and of proteins in general is still at this stage not very well understood in the first part of this project the levels of histone lysine methylation in various tissues were investigated in order to establish a correlation between the methyl content and cell division, age and differentiation. It was found that the levels of histone lysine methylation were low in the two tissue culture lines that were investigated correlating with the rapid growth rate of these cells. An increase in the histone lysine methylation content was observed when these cells were induced to differentiate. The highest levels of histone lysine methylation were found in brain tissue. Methylation levels in the histones isolated from the mouse and bovine brain tissue are very similar. It was concluded from these results that histone lysine methylation may be linked to the cessation of replication and differentiation of cells. Previous studies on the rate of methylation in rat brain (Lee and Duerre, 1974) have shown that the rate of histone methylation decreases with age of the tissue. It was therefore decided to investigate the rate of histone methylation in nuclei isolated from mouse erythroleukemia (MEL) cells at different stages of differentiation. These cells can be induced to differentiate upon which they cease to replicate and mature into cells that are analogous to red blood cells. The rate of incorporation of radioac…
author: Lloyd, Benita Louise
language: eng
date published: 2000
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:47Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9891