Nucleic Acids Research (NAR), from Oxford University Press, publishes the results of leading-edge research into physical, chemical, biochemical and biological aspects of nucleic acids and proteins inv...

DNA methylation is a critical component for repression of fetal haemoglobin in adult blood cells. Removing DNA methylation from the fetal haemoglobin promoter effectively upregulates the gene, opening...

The human ribosome is highly modified by protein methylation. Here, Hamey et al. discover SMYD5 as the methyltransferase responsible for trimethylating ribosomal protein RPL40 at lysine 22. Systematic analysis of SMYD5 substrate recognition shows that it targets a KXY motif in RPL40, strongly suggesting that it is not a histone methyltransferase.