School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
Department of Life Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Physiol Plant. 2021 Dec;173(4):1382-1391. doi: 10.1111/ppl.13421. Epub 2021 Apr 21.
Enhancers represent noncoding regulatory regions of the genome located distantly from their target genes. They regulate gene expression programs in a context-specific manner via interacting with promoters of one or more target genes and are generally associated with transcription factor binding sites and epi(genomic)/chromatin features, such as regions of chromatin accessibility and histone modifications. The enhancers are difficult to identify due to the modularity of their associated features. Although enhancers have been studied extensively in human and animals, only a handful of them has been identified in few plant species till date due to nonavailability of plant-specific experimental and computational approaches for their discovery. Being an important regulatory component of the genome, enhancers represent potential targets for engineering agronomic traits, including salinity stress tolerance in plants. Here, we provide a review of the available experimental and computational approaches along with the associated sequence and chromatin/epigenetic features for the discovery of enhancers in plants. In addition, we provide insights into the challenges and future prospects of enhancer research in plant biology with emphasis on potential applications in engineering salinity stress tolerance in crop plants.
增强子是基因组中远离其靶基因的非编码调控区域。它们通过与一个或多个靶基因的启动子相互作用，以特定于上下文的方式调节基因表达程序，通常与转录因子结合位点和 epi（基因组）/染色质特征相关，如染色质可及性区域和组蛋白修饰。由于其相关特征的模块化，增强子很难识别。尽管在人和动物中已经对增强子进行了广泛的研究，但由于缺乏用于发现它们的植物特异性实验和计算方法，迄今为止，只有少数几种植物物种已经鉴定出增强子。作为基因组的重要调控组成部分，增强子代表了工程农艺性状的潜在目标，包括植物的耐盐性。在这里，我们提供了对现有实验和计算方法的综述，以及与植物中增强子发现相关的序列和染色质/表观遗传特征。此外，我们还深入探讨了植物生物学中增强子研究的挑战和未来前景，重点介绍了在工程作物耐盐性方面的潜在应用。
