Recruitment and reinforcement: maintaining epigenetic silencing

Cells need to appropriately balance transcriptional stability and adaptability in order to maintain their identities while responding robustly to various stimuli. Eukaryotic cells use an elegant “epigenetic” system to achieve this functionality. “Epigenetics” is referred to as heritable information beyond the DNA sequence, including histone and DNA modifications, ncRNAs and other chromatin-related components. Here, we review the mechanisms of the epigenetic inheritance of a repressive chromatin state, with an emphasis on recent progress in the field. We emphasize that (i) epigenetic information is inherited in a relatively stable but imprecise fashion; (ii) multiple cis and trans factors are involved in the maintenance of epigenetic information during mitosis; and (iii) the maintenance of a repressive epigenetic state requires both recruitment and self-reinforcement mechanisms. These mechanisms crosstalk with each other and form interconnected feedback loops to shape a stable epigenetic system while maintaining certain degrees of flexibility.