Enhancer RNAs predict enhancer–gene regulatory links and are critical for enhancer function in neuronal systems

Long Noncoding RNAs with Enhancer-like Function in Human Cells

While the long noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) constitute a large portion of the mammalian transcriptome, their biological functions has remained elusive. A few long ncRNAs that have been studied in any detail silence gene expression in processes such as X-inactivation and imprinting. We used a GENCODE annotation of the human genome to characterize over a thousand long ncRNAs that are expressed in mult...

Enhancer turnover and conserved regulatory function in vertebrate evolution.

Mutations in regulatory regions including enhancers are an important source of variation and innovation during evolution. Enhancers can evolve by changes in the sequence, arrangement and repertoire of transcription factor binding sites, but whole enhancers can also be lost or gained in certain lineages in a process of turnover. The proopiomelanocortin gene (Pomc), which encodes a prohormone, is...

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....

Critical Role for CCAAT/Enhancer-Binding

A Mammalian Enhancer trap Resource for Discovering and Manipulating Neuronal

18 19 2 ABSTRACT 20 There is a continuing need for driver strains to enable cell type-specific manipulation in the 21 nervous system. Each cell type expresses a unique set of genes, and recapitulating expression of 22 marker genes by BAC transgenesis or knock-in has generated useful transgenic mouse lines. 23 However since genes are often expressed in many cell types, many of these lines have r...