Department of Biology, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA.
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen 91058, Germany.
Development. 2018 Apr 5;145(7):dev160663. doi: 10.1242/dev.160663.
Evolution of -regulatory elements (such as enhancers) plays an important role in the production of diverse morphology. However, a mechanistic understanding is often limited by the absence of methods for studying enhancers in species other than established model systems. Here, we sought to establish methods to identify and test enhancer activity in the red flour beetle, To identify possible enhancer regions, we first obtained genome-wide chromatin profiles from various tissues and stages of using FAIRE (formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements)-sequencing. Comparison of these profiles revealed a distinct set of open chromatin regions in each tissue and at each stage. In addition, comparison of the FAIRE data with sets of computationally predicted (i.e. supervised -regulatory module-predicted) enhancers revealed a very high overlap between the two datasets. Second, using in the wing and in the embryo as case studies, we established the first universal reporter assay system that works in various contexts in , and in a cross-species context. Together, these advances will facilitate investigation of -evolution and morphological diversity in and other insects.
调控元件（如增强子）的进化在产生多样化的形态方面起着重要作用。然而，由于缺乏在除了已建立的模式系统以外的物种中研究增强子的方法，因此对其机制的理解往往受到限制。在这里，我们试图建立在粉纹夜蛾中识别和测试增强子活性的方法。为了识别可能的增强子区域，我们首先使用 FAIRE（甲醛辅助分离调控元件）测序从各种组织和发育阶段的 中获得全基因组染色质图谱。对这些图谱的比较揭示了每个组织和每个阶段中一组独特的开放染色质区域。此外，将 FAIRE 数据与一组计算预测的（即受监督的调控模块预测）增强子进行比较，发现这两个数据集之间有很高的重叠。其次，我们使用 在翅膀和 在胚胎中作为案例研究，建立了第一个在各种背景下都能在 中以及跨物种背景下工作的通用报告基因检测系统。总之，这些进展将有助于研究 和其他昆虫中的调控元件进化和形态多样性。
