Enhancer Of Zeste Homolog 1 (EZH1)

EZH1 is a component of a noncanonical Polycomb repressive complex-2 (PRC2) that mediates methylation of histone H3 lys27 (H3K27) and functions in the maintenance of embryonic stem cell pluripotency and plasticity.The deduced 747-amino acid EZH1 protein has a calculated molecular mass of 85 kD. It shares about 55% amino acid identity (70% similarity) with the Drosophila protein. EZH1 was expressed as 2 major transcripts of 5 and 6.5 kb in all adult and fetal human tissues surveyed; comparison of cloned cDNAs suggested that alternative splicing may account for at least part of the transcript size differences. Analysis of an EZH1 cDNA revealed an unusual splicing event involving EZH1 and a tandemly linked gene, GPR2, suggesting a potential mechanism for modifying the EZH1 protein in the conserved C-terminal domain.