Natural History and Evolution of Paper Wasps

Abstract

related wasp P. metricus; this is an early example of the utility of 454 sequencing for transcriptomics (36). Our results demonstrate that it is possible to use species that have had their genomes se-quenced as "hubs" to efficiently generate genomic resources for clusters of related species that might each be especially well suited to address particular evolutionary problems. This "hub and spokes" approach should enable genomics to be deployed for a broader range of species than is currently being done, until whole-genome sequencing of eukaryote genomes becomes routine. Arginine methylation occurs on a number of proteins involved in a variety of cellular functions. Histone tails are known to be mono-and dimethylated on multiple arginine residues where they influence chromatin remodeling and gene expression. To date, no enzyme has been shown to reverse these regulatory modifications. We demonstrate that the Jumonji domain-containing 6 protein (JMJD6) is a JmjC-containing iron-and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase that demethylates histone H3 at arginine 2 (H3R2) and histone H4 at arginine 3 (H4R3) in both biochemical and cell-based assays. These findings may help explain the many developmental defects observed in the JMJD6 −/− knockout mice.