Abstract
The human body is composed of diverse cell types with distinct functions.
Although it is known that lineage specification depends on cell-specific
gene expression, which in turn is driven by promoters, enhancers,
insulators and other cis-regulatory DNA sequences for each gene,
the relative roles of these regulatory elements in this process are
not clear. We have previously developed a chromatin-immunoprecipitation-based
microarray method (ChIP-chip) to locate promoters, enhancers and
insulators in the human genome. Here we use the same approach to
identify these elements in multiple cell types and investigate their
roles in cell-type-specific gene expression. We observed that the
chromatin state at promoters and CTCF-binding at insulators is largely
invariant across diverse cell types. In contrast, enhancers are marked
with highly cell-type-specific histone modification patterns, strongly
correlate to cell-type-specific gene expression programs on a global
scale, and are functionally active in a cell-type-specific manner.
Our results define over 55,000 potential transcriptional enhancers
in the human genome, significantly expanding the current catalogue
of human enhancers and highlighting the role of these elements in
cell-type-specific gene expression.
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).