Laboratoire d'InstabiliteduGenome et Cancerogenese, Institut de Biologie Structurale et Microbiologie, CNRS, Marseille 13402, France-
Abstract: Set1 is the catalytic subunit and the central component of the evolutionarily conserved Set1 complex -Set1C- that methylates histone 3 lysine 4 -H3K4-- Here we have determined protein-protein interactions within the complex and related the substructure to function- The loss of individual Set1C subunits differentially affects Set1 stability, complex integrity, global H3K4 methylation, and distribution of H3K4 methylation along active genes- The complex requires Set1, Swd1, and Swd3 for integrity, and Set1 amount is greatly reduced in the absence of the Swd1-Swd3 heterodimer- Bre2 and Sdc1 also form a heteromeric subunit, which requires the SET domain for interaction with the complex, and Sdc1 strongly interacts with itself- Inactivation of either Bre2 or Sdc1 has very similar effects- Neither is required for complex integrity, and their removal results in an increase of H3K4 mono- and dimethylation and a severe decrease of trimethylation at the 5' end of active coding regions but a decrease of H3K4 dimethylation at the 3' end of coding regions- Cells lacking Spp1 have a reduced amount of Set1 and retain a fraction of trimethylated H3K4, whereas cells lacking Shg1 show slightly elevated levels of both di- and trimethylation- Set1C associates with both serine 5- and serine 2-phosphorylated forms of polymerase II, indicating that the association persists to the 3' end of transcribed genes- Taken together, our results suggest that Set1C subunits stimulate Set1 catalytic activity all along active genes-