Laboratory of Gene Expression Regulation in Development, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 34/5 Vavilov St., 119334 Moscow, Russia.
Center for Precision Genome Editing and Genetic Technologies for Biomedicine, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 34/5 Vavilov St., 119334 Moscow, Russia.
Cells. 2020 Jul 12;9(7):1675. doi: 10.3390/cells9071675.
The genomes of all organisms abound with various -regulatory elements, which control gene activity. Transcriptional enhancers are a key group of such elements in eukaryotes and are DNA regions that form physical contacts with gene promoters and precisely orchestrate gene expression programs. Here, we follow gradual evolution of this regulatory system and discuss its features in different organisms. In eubacteria, an enhancer-like element is often a single regulatory element, is usually proximal to the core promoter, and is occupied by one or a few activators. Activation of gene expression in archaea is accompanied by the recruitment of an activator to several enhancer-like sites in the upstream promoter region. In eukaryotes, activation of expression is accompanied by the recruitment of activators to multiple enhancers, which may be distant from the core promoter, and the activators act through coactivators. The role of the general DNA architecture in transcription control increases in evolution. As a whole, it can be seen that enhancers of multicellular eukaryotes evolved from the corresponding prototypic enhancer-like regulatory elements with the gradually increasing genome size of organisms.
所有生物体的基因组中都存在着各种调控元件，它们控制着基因的活性。转录增强子是真核生物中此类元件的一个关键类别，是与基因启动子形成物理接触并精确调控基因表达程序的 DNA 区域。在这里，我们跟踪这个调控系统的逐步进化，并讨论它在不同生物体中的特征。在原核生物中，增强子样元件通常是单个调控元件，通常靠近核心启动子，并且由一个或几个激活剂占据。古菌中基因表达的激活伴随着一个激活剂被招募到上游启动子区域的几个增强子样位点。在真核生物中，表达的激活伴随着激活剂被招募到多个增强子，这些增强子可能远离核心启动子，并且激活剂通过共激活剂起作用。一般 DNA 结构在转录控制中的作用在进化中增加。总的来说，可以看出，多细胞真核生物的增强子是从与生物体基因组大小逐渐增加相对应的原型增强子样调控元件进化而来的。
