Each issue, The Scientist will publish a list of the 10 top-rated papers from a specific subject area, as well as a short review of one or more of the listed papers. We will also publish a selection of comments on interesting recent papers from the Faculty of 1000's output. For more information, visit www.facultyof1000.com.
Working with Neurospora, the simplest eukaryote which methylates its DNA, Selker and colleagues isolated a series of mutants deficient in methylation (dim mutants). The first of these to be characterized, dim-2, turned out predictably to code for a DNA methyltransferase. But the most recent to be identified, dim-5, the subject of Selker's Nature paper, surprisingly codes for a histone methyltransferase.
This finding was foreshadowed by Selker's earlier work. He found that by inhibiting histone deacetylases, he also could prevent DNA methylation.2 This result planted the first seed that histone modification might be a prerequisite for ...
