Plant homeodomain (PHD) is a class of transcription factor in the Zinc finger domain family. The most important function of which is to recognize various histone modifications, including histone methylation and acetylation, etc. They can also bind to DNA. Proteins with PHD domains, some of which possess histone modification enzyme activity, or can interact with histone modification enzymes, and some are associated with DNA methylation, with E3 ubiquitin ligase activity, or even can be chromatin remodeling factors. As transcriptional regulators, they play an important role in plant growth and development. In this review, we summarize the structural features and substrate binding specificity of PHD domains (including H3K4me3/0, H3K9me3, H3R2, H3K14ac) and DNA, the conservation of plant PHD domain in evolution, the molecular mechanism of known PHD domain-containing proteins in plants, providing a reference for further understanding of the involvement of these proteins during plant growth and development.
植物同源结构域(plant homeodomain, PHD)是锌指结构域家族的一类转录调控因子,其最主要的功能是可以识别各种组蛋白修饰密码,包括组蛋白甲基化和乙酰化等;此外PHD结构域还可以与DNA结合。含有PHD结构域的蛋白,或者本身具有组蛋白修饰酶活性,或者可以与各类组蛋白修饰酶相互作用,还有部分与DNA甲基化相关,具有E3泛素连接酶活性,或者还可以作为染色质重塑因子,以各种不同的作用方式,在植物的生长发育过程中发挥了重要的作用。本文主要综述了结合各种类型组蛋白(包括H3K4me3/0、H3K9me3、H3R2和H3K14ac)以及DNA的PHD结构域的结构特点及其结合特异性、PHD结构域在植物中的进化保守性以及植物中已经发现的含有PHD结构域蛋白的功能及作用机制,为进一步了解该类蛋白在植物生长发育过程中如何发挥作用提供了参考。.
Keywords: epigenetics; histone code; histone modification reader; plant homeodomain (PHD); transcriptional regulation.