Publications [#381260] of Seog Oh

Papers Published

1. Liu, H; Ramachandran, S; Fong, N; Phang, T; Lee, S; Parsa, P; Liu, X; Harmacek, L; Danhorn, T; Song, T; Oh, S; Zhang, Q; Chen, Z; Zhang, Q; Tu, T-H; Happoldt, C; O'Conner, B; Janknecht, R; Li, C-Y; Marrack, P; Kappler, J; Leach, S; Zhang, G, JMJD5 couples with CDK9 to release the paused RNA polymerase II., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, vol. 117 no. 33 (August, 2020), pp. 19888-19895 [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/20)

   Abstract:
   More than 30% of genes in higher eukaryotes are regulated by RNA polymerase II (Pol II) promoter proximal pausing. Pausing is released by the positive transcription elongation factor complex (P-TEFb). However, the exact mechanism by which this occurs and whether phosphorylation of the carboxyl-terminal domain of Pol II is involved in the process remains unknown. We previously reported that JMJD5 could generate tailless nucleosomes at position +1 from transcription start sites (TSS), thus perhaps enable progression of Pol II. Here we find that knockout of JMJD5 leads to accumulation of nucleosomes at position +1. Absence of JMJD5 also results in loss of or lowered transcription of a large number of genes. Interestingly, we found that phosphorylation, by CDK9, of Ser2 within two neighboring heptad repeats in the carboxyl-terminal domain of Pol II, together with phosphorylation of Ser5 within the second repeat, HR-Ser2p (1, 2)-Ser5p (2) for short, allows Pol II to bind JMJD5 via engagement of the N-terminal domain of JMJD5. We suggest that these events bring JMJD5 near the nucleosome at position +1, thus allowing JMJD5 to clip histones on this nucleosome, a phenomenon that may contribute to release of Pol II pausing.