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Recent advances in high-throughput approaches to dissect enhancer function.

David Santiago-AlgarraLan T M DaoLydie PradelAlexandre EspañaSalvatore Spicuglia
Published in: F1000Research (2017)
The regulation of gene transcription in higher eukaryotes is accomplished through the involvement of transcription start site (TSS)-proximal (promoters) and -distal (enhancers) regulatory elements. It is now well acknowledged that enhancer elements play an essential role during development and cell differentiation, while genetic alterations in these elements are a major cause of human disease. Many strategies have been developed to identify and characterize enhancers. Here, we discuss recent advances in high-throughput approaches to assess enhancer activity, from the well-established massively parallel reporter assays to the recent clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9-based technologies. We highlight how these approaches contribute toward a better understanding of enhancer function, eventually leading to the discovery of new types of regulatory sequences, and how the alteration of enhancers can affect transcriptional regulation.
Keyphrases
  • high throughput
  • transcription factor
  • crispr cas
  • binding protein
  • genome wide identification
  • genome editing
  • single cell
  • genome wide
  • endothelial cells
  • gene expression