Special thanks to @maxraas.bsky.social @mfseidl.bsky.social Peter Verrijzer & Berend Snel for all the help and collaboration on this project and to the reviewers and editors for all their helpfull suggestions to improve the paper!
In short, our results demonstrate the independent evolution and function of PRC1 and PRC2, and show that crosstalk between these complexes is a secondary development in evolution.
Furthermore,the identification of orthologs for ncPRC1-defining subunits in unicellular relatives of animals and of fungi suggests that the origin of ncPRC1 predates that of cPRC1, and we develop a scenario for the evolution of cPRC1 from ncPRC1.
Strikingly, a substantial portion (42%) of the organisms that contain Polycomb orthologs encode for only PRC1 or only PRC2, showing that their evolution since LECA is largely uncoupled.
Combining phylogenetics, structural analyses and comparative genomics we determined the deep origin and evolution of the core Polycomb proteins. We found that both PRC1 and PRC2 were present in the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA).
My second paper of the year finally out!
While the Polycomb field is dominated by models based on a tight functional coupling between PRC1 and PRC2, we found compelling evolutionary support for the predominantly independent functions of PRC1 and PRC2.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
