A team of scientists led by those in Trinity College Dublin has discovered new mechanisms involved in establishing cellular identity, a process that ensures the billions of different cells in our bodies do the correct job. This new discovery in stem cells – a result so surprising that the team initially believed it to be an error in the lab – has potential translational impacts in cancer biology and associated targeted treatments.
The research focuses on the workings of Polycomb protein complexes, PRC1 and PRC2, which are studied by Professor Adrian Bracken and his team, based in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology.
A puzzle regarding PRC2 has intrigued the Bracken lab and other scientists in the field for years: two forms (PRC2.1 and PRC2.2) exist in the cell but the Bracken lab previously showed that the two forms of PRC2 target the same regions of DNA and do the same job. So why do we need two versions?
The team found that PRC2.1 and PRC2.2 recruit different forms of the PRC1 complex to DNA, thereby finally explaining why two versions are needed.
