Alternative titles; symbols
HGNC Approved Gene Symbol: PRMT8
Cytogenetic location: 12p13.32 Genomic coordinates (GRCh38) : 12:3,381,349-3,593,973 (from NCBI)
Arginine methylation is a widespread posttranslational modification mediated by arginine methyltransferases, such as PRMT8. Arginine methylation is involved in a number of cellular processes, including DNA repair, RNA transcription, signal transduction, protein compartmentalization, and possibly protein translation (Lee et al., 2005).
By EST database analysis and PCR, Lee et al. (2005) cloned human PRMT8. The deduced PRMT8 protein contains 4 conserved methyltransferase motifs and an N-terminal myristoylation motif. PRMT8 shares more than 80% amino acid identity with PRMT1 (602950), although PRMT8 has 76 unique N-terminal amino acids. Northern blot analysis detected PRMT8 expression only in brain, which expressed a major transcript of 2.6 kb and minor transcripts of 2.2 and 2.9 kb. Database analysis suggested that PRMT8 may be expressed in other tissues.
In his review, Wolf (2009) reported that full-length PRMT8 contains 394 amino acids.
Aubert et al. (2003) found that Prmt8, which they called Hrmt1l3, was selectively expressed in mouse neuroepithelial cells and was an early marker for neural precursor cells.
Lee et al. (2005) found that recombinant PRMT8 preferentially methylated histone H4 (see 602822), a glycine/arginine-rich fragment of fibrillarin (FBL; 134795), and yeast Npl3. PRMT8 catalyzed the formation of both monomethylarginine and asymmetric dimethylarginine products, indicating PRMT8 is a type I enzyme. In addition, PRMT8 was myristoylated, and myristoylation targeted PRMT8 to the membrane. PRMT8 homodimerized and heterodimerized with PRMT1, and myristoylated PRMT8 recruited PRMT1 activity to the membrane. PRMT8 did not interact with other PRMTs.
By genomic sequence analysis, Lee et al. (2005) mapped the PRMT8 gene to the subtelomeric region of chromosome 12. They mapped the mouse Prmt8 gene to chromosome 6.
Wolf (2009) reported that the PRMT8 gene maps to chromosome 12p13.3.
Aubert, J., Stavridis, M. P., Tweedie, S., O'Reilly, M., Vierlinger, K., Li, M., Ghazal, P., Pratt, T., Mason, J. O., Roy, D., Smith, A. Screening for mammalian neural genes via fluorescence-activated cell sorter purification of neural precursors from Sox1-gfp knock-in mice. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 100: 11836-11841, 2003. [PubMed: 12923295] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1734197100]
Lee, J., Sayegh, J., Daniel, J., Clarke, S., Bedford, M. T. PRMT8, a new membrane-bound tissue-specific member of the protein arginine methyltransferase family. J. Biol. Chem. 280: 32890-32896, 2005. [PubMed: 16051612] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M506944200]
Wolf, S. S. The protein arginine methyltransferase family: an update about function, new perspectives and the physiological role in humans. Cell. Molec. Life Sci. 66: 2109-2121, 2009. [PubMed: 19300908] [Full Text: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0010-x]