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Polycomb Complexes and the Role of Epigenetic Memory in Development

  • Chapter
Epigenomics

Abstract

The availability of a many important developmental genes is determined by events that occurred at earlier developmental stages. In such genes, some kind of cellular memory encodes an epigenetic mark that is transmitted through many rounds of cell division and determines whether or how the gene will respond to the presence of activators. Polycomb mechanisms are perhaps the best known example of such epigenetic regulators. Polycomb complexes can bind to Polycomb Response Elements and establish a repressive chromatin state but they also leave an epigenetic mark on the affected genes such that the chromatin state will be recreated in the following cell cycle. Polycomb mechanisms and the nature and propagation of the epigenetic mark during development are reviewed with particular attention to the genetic and molecular evidence available from the fruit fly in which they were first discovered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemsitry, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA

    Vincenzo Pirrotta

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  1. Yuri B. Schwartz
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EG, UK

    Anne C. Ferguson-Smith

  2. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Marris Park Ave, Bronx NY 10461, Ullman 921, USA

    John M. Greally

  3. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, I Bungtown Rd, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724-221 2, USA

    Robert A. Martienssen

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Schwartz, Y.B., Pirrotta, V. (2009). Polycomb Complexes and the Role of Epigenetic Memory in Development. In: Ferguson-Smith, A.C., Greally, J.M., Martienssen, R.A. (eds) Epigenomics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9187-2_13

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