Saturating Mutagenesis Screening Identifies a Functional Genomic Locus that Regulates Expression.

A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control the UCP1 expression in brown and beige adipocytes is essential for us to modulate adipose cell fate and promote thermogenesis, which may provide a therapeutic view for the treatment of obesity and obesity-related diseases. To systematically identify -element(s) that transcriptionally regulates we here took advantage of the high-throughput CRIPSR-Cas9 screening system, and performed an  saturating mutagenesis screen, by using a customized sgRNA library targeting the ~ 20 kb genomic region near . Through the screening, we have identified several genomic loci that may contain key regulatory element for expression in cultured brown and white adipocytes , and in inguinal white adipose tissue . Our study highlights a broadly useful approach for studying regulatory elements in a high-throughput manner.