title: Enhancers and chromatin structures: regulatory hubs in gene expression and diseases.
abstract: Gene expression requires successful communication between enhancer and promoter regions, whose activities are regulated by a variety of factors and associated with distinct chromatin structures; in addition, functionally related genes and their regulatory repertoire tend to be arranged in the same subchromosomal regulatory domains. In this review, we discuss the importance of enhancers, especially clusters of enhancers (such as super-enhancers), as key regulatory hubs to integrate environmental cues and encode spatiotemporal instructions for genome expression, which are critical for a variety of biological processes governing mammalian development. Furthermore, we emphasize that the enhancer-promoter interaction landscape provides a critical context to understand the aetiologies and mechanisms behind numerous complex human diseases and provides new avenues for effective transcription-based interventions.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, 61 Biopolis Drive, Proteos 138673, Singapore.
authors.forename: Zhenhua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, 61 Biopolis Drive, Proteos 138673, Singapore wwtee@imcb.a-star.edu.sg.|Department of Physiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117597, Singapore.
authors.forename: Wee-Wei
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Tee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D004742:Enhancer Elements, Genetic; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin
keywords: DNA looping; Enhancers; chromatin; gene expression