title: Enhancing our understanding of enhancers in T-helper cells.
abstract: A long-standing question in immunology has been to understand how transcription factors (TF) determine cell-type-specific transcription programs. Traditionally, investigating TFs in immune cells has been limited to measuring the effect of a single TF on a limited number of gene targets. The advent of next generation sequencing methods makes it possible to measure the effects of multiple transcription factors on a genome-wide scale. This holistic approach gives us a better understanding of the influence that multiple TFs have on cell-specific programs. In this issue of European Journal of Immunology, Fang et al. [Eur. J. Immunol. 2015. 45: 3150-3157] show that genomic regions cooccupied with two or more TFs show increased epigenetic histone marks of active enhancers, which correspond to increased transcriptional activity.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jacob J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Paiano
authors.affiliation: Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Golnaz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vahedi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*; D006377:T-Lymphocytes, Helper-Inducer / Q000276:immunology*
keywords: Enhancer; Epigenome; Meta-analysis; STAT; Th cell; Transcription factor