title: Transcriptional Enhancers: Bridging the Genome and Phenome.
abstract: Enhancers play a major role in animal development by modulating spatiotemporal expression of genes. They interact with sequence-specific transcriptional regulators in response to internal and external cues to bring about transcriptional changes, thus serving as the critical link between an organism's genome and its phenotypic traits. Deciphering the biology of enhancers is a key to understanding the genetic basis of common human diseases. Although a large number of candidate enhancers have been annotated through genome-wide analyses of chromatin accessibility, transcription factor binding, and histone modification in diverse cell types, efforts to characterize their biological roles in human diseases have only begun. Recent experiments have suggested a role for the three-dimensional chromatin architecture in regulation of gene expression by enhancers.
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Institute of Genomic Medicine, and Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, California 92093-0653.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Institute for Personalized Medicine, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yue
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004742:Enhancer Elements, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D016678:Genome; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D010641:Phenotype; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*