Involvement of CENP-F in histone methylation

CENP-F (also named mitosin) is a multifunctional protein of 350 kDa. In interphase, it is a nuclear protein, whereas in M phase it localizes to the kinetochore, the major microtubule-binding structure on chromosomes essential for chromosome segregation. CENP-F is also critical for myocyte differentiation through the interaction with Rb. It binds to ATF4 and negatively regulates the transcriptional activity of ATF4. It is also important for mitotic progression. Here we show that depletion of CENP-F by RNAi markedly downregulated the methylation of histone H3 at K4 and K9. Consistently, association of HP1 alpha with mitotic chromosomes was largely decreased. These results uncover a novel role of CENP-F in regulation of epigenetic modification on histone H3.