These tails are topic to a number of submit-translational covalent modifications, including acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination, sumoylation and methylation (reviewed in 1 ). The exception to the rule is the DOT1 family, members of which methylate K79 in the globular region of histone H3 and which are structurally not associated to SET-area proteins 4 - 6 Latest work suggests that SET-area-containing proteins methylate just a few proteins in addition to histones (see later)