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Chromatin signatures of active enhancers

Volume 3, Issue 2   March/April 2012
Pages 126 - 131
http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/nucl.19232
Keywords: ChIP-seq, chromatin structure, enhancer, high throughput sequencing, histone modification
Authors: salvatore spicuglia and Laurent Vanhille

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Abstract:
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.

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A Pekowska, T Benoukraf, J Zacarias-Cabeza, M Belhocine, F Koch, H Holota, et al. H3K4 tri-methylation provides an epigenetic signature of active enhancers. EMBO J 2011; 30: 4198-210
PMID: 21847099 DOI: 10.1038/emboj.2011.295

Received: November 29, 2011; Accepted: January 2, 2012

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