SURVEY AND SUMMARY Handpicking epigenetic marks with PHD fingers

Plant homeodomain (PHD) fingers have emerged as one of the largest families of epigenetic effectors capable of recognizing or ‘reading’ posttranslational histone modifications and unmodified histone tails. These interactions are highly specific and can be modulated by the neighboring epigenetic marks and adjacent effectors. A few PHD fingers have recently been found to also associate with non-histone proteins. In this review, we detail the molecular mechanisms and biological outcomes of the histone and non-histone targeting by PHD fingers. We discuss the significance of crosstalk between the histone modifications and consequences of combinatorial readout for selective recruitment of the PHD finger-containing components of chromatin remodeling and transcriptional