Inserm, UMR_S 928, TAGC, Marseille, France.
Nucleus. 2012 Mar 1;3(2):126-31. doi: 10.4161/nucl.19232.
Gene-distal cis-regulatory sequences, such as enhancers, are key contributors of tissue-specific gene expression. In particular, enhancers can be located up to hundreds of kilobases from the promoters that they control, making their identification challenging. Thanks to the recent technological advances to map histone modifications and chromatin-associated factors genome-wide, several studies have begun to characterize chromatin signatures of active enhancers. Here, we discuss some of these results and how they provide new insights into the tissue-specific organization of enhancer repertoires.
基因远端顺式调控序列,如增强子,是组织特异性基因表达的关键贡献者。特别是,增强子可以位于它们所控制的启动子数百千碱基之外,这使得它们的识别具有挑战性。由于最近在绘制组蛋白修饰和染色质相关因子全基因组图谱方面的技术进步,已经有几项研究开始描述活性增强子的染色质特征。在这里,我们讨论其中的一些结果,以及它们如何为增强子库的组织特异性结构提供新的见解。