Recognition of shorter and longer trimethyllysine analogues by epigenetic reader proteins

Abstract

Histone N^ε-lysine methylation is a widespread posttranslational modification that is specifically recognised by a diverse class of N^ε-methyllysine binding reader proteins. Combined thermodynamic data, molecular dynamics simulations, and quantum chemical studies reveal that reader proteins efficiently bind trimethylornithine and trimethylhomolysine, the simplest N^ε-trimethyllysine analogues that differ in the length of the side chain.