Boosting transcription by transcription: enhancer-associated transcripts

Gene Isoform Specificity through Enhancer-Associated Antisense Transcription

Enhancers and antisense RNAs play key roles in transcriptional regulation through differing mechanisms. Recent studies have demonstrated that enhancers are often associated with non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), yet the functional role of these enhancer:ncRNA associations is unclear. Using RNA-Sequencing to interrogate the transcriptomes of undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) and their ...

Down Regulation of DHFR Promoter Activity by PML Transcription Repressor

Enhancer-dependent inhibition of mouse renin transcription by inflammatory cytokines.

Inflammatory cytokines have been shown to inhibit renin gene expression in the kidney in vivo and the kidney tumor-derived As4.1 cell line. In this report, we show that cytokines oncostatin M (OSM), IL-6, and IL-1beta inhibit transcriptional activity associated with 4.1 kb of the mouse renin 5'-flanking sequence in As4.1 cells. The 242-bp enhancer (-2866 to -2625 bp) is sufficient to mediate th...

Super-Enhancer Transcription Converges on AID

AID mis-targeting is poorly understood but contributes significantly to B cell genome instability. Two new papers in Cell reveal that AID mistargeting occurs primarily in gene bodies within a nuclear microenvironment characterized by high levels of transcriptional activity, interconnected transcriptional regulatory elements, and overlapping sense and antisense (convergent) transcription.

Enhancer-derived RNAs: 'spicing up' transcription programs.

Recent reports established transcription of enhancerderived RNAs (eRNAs), while the evidence for their functional significance remained mostly speculative. Two recent reports published in Nature (Lam et al, 2013; Li et al, 2013) offer the first functional evidence for eRNA transcripts. These analyses further reveal an unexpected level of specificity in the regulation of adjacent mRNAs by eRNAs....