Polycomb-dependent control of cell fate in adult tissue

Epigenetic control of gene expression in adult tissues is crucial to maintain organ function and homeostasis. A report in this issue of The EMBO Journal (Chiacchiera et al, 2016b), together with another one published in Gastroenterology (Koppens et al, 2016), unveils how chromatin repressive complex PRC2 controls the equilibrium between secretory and absorptive fates in the intestine. PRC2 controls proliferation of cells within the crypt and at the same time represses the transcription factor Atoh1, thus favoring the generation of enterocytes versus secretory cell types in the adult intestine.