The Central Role of EED in the Orchestration of Polycomb Group Complexes

Polycomb Repressive Complexes 1 and 2 (PRC1 and 2) play a critical role in the epigenetic regulation of transcription during cellular differentiation, stem cell pluripotency, and neoplastic progression1-3. Here we show that the Polycomb group protein EED, a core component of PRC2, physically interacts with and functions as part of the PRC1 complex. Components of PRC1 and PRC2 compete for EED binding. EED functions to recruit PRC1 to H3K27me3 loci and enhances PRC1 mediated H2A ubiquitin E3 ligase activity. Taken together, we uncover the integral role of EED as an epigenetic exchange factor coordinating the activities of PRC1 and 2. EED, uH2A, RING1A, RING1B, BMI1 and H3K27Me3 ChIP-seq in EED stable knockdown and control Scramble DU145 prostate cancer cell line