Transposable elements as tissue-specific enhancers in cancers of endodermal lineage.

ABSTRACT: Transposable elements (TE) are repetitive genomic elements that harbor binding sites for human transcription factors (TF). A regulatory role for TEs has been suggested in embryonal development and diseases such as cancer but systematic investigation of their functions has been limited by their widespread silencing in the genome. Here, we utilize unbiased massively parallel reporter assay data using a whole human genome library to identify TEs with functional enhancer activity in two human cancer types of endodermal lineage, colorectal and liver cancers. We show that the identified TE enhancers are characterized by genomic features associated with active enhancers, such as epigenetic marks and TF binding. Importantly, we identify distinct TE subfamilies that function as tissue-specific enha

SUBMITTER: Karttunen K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10474299 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature