Dnmt3L Antagonizes DNA Methylation at Bivalent Promoters and Favors DNA Methylation at Gene Bodies in ESCs Francesco Neri,1,4 Anna Krepelova,1,2,4 Danny Incarnato,1,2 Mara Maldotti,1 Caterina Parlato,1 Federico Galvagni,2 Filomena Matarese,3 Hendrik G. Stunnenberg,3 and Salvatore Oliviero1,2,* 1Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF), via Nizza 52, 10126 Torino, Italy 2Dipartimento di Biotecnologie, Chimica e Farmacia, Universita` degli Studi di Siena, Via Fiorentina 1, 53100 Siena, Italy 3Nijmegen Center for Molecular Life Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands 4These authors contributed equally to this work *Correspondence:
[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.08.056 SUMMARY DNA methylation is mediated by DNA methyltransferases (Dnmt), which include the maintenance enzyme Dnmt1 and the The de novo DNA methyltransferase 3-like (Dnmt3L) de novo Dnmt3. The family of the Dnmt3 includes two catalyti- is a catalytically inactive DNA methyltransferase cally active members, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b, and a catalytically that cooperates with Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b to meth- inactive member called Dnmt3-like (Dnmt3L) (Bestor, 2000)(Ju- ylate DNA. Dnmt3L is highly expressed in mouse rkowska et al., 2011b). embryonic stem cells (ESCs), but its function in these A crystallography study showed that Dnmt3L forms a hetero- cells is unknown. Through genome-wide analysis of tetrameric complex with Dnmt3a (Jia et al., 2007). It has been suggested that this tetramerization prevents Dnmt3a oligomeri- Dnmt3L knockdown in ESCs, we found that Dnmt3L zation and localization in heterochromatin (Jurkowska et al., is a positive regulator of methylation at the gene 2011a).