Alu elements contain many binding sites for transcription factors and may play a role in regulation of developmental processes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The human genome contains over one million Alu repeat elements whose distribution is not uniform. While metabolism-related genes were shown to be enriched with Alu, in structural genes Alu elements are under-represented. Such observations led researchers to suggest that Alu elements were involved in gene regulation and were selected to be present in some genes and absent from others. This hypothesis is gaining strength due to findings that indicate involvement of Alu elements in a variety of functions; for example, Alu sequences were found to contain several functional transcription factor (TF) binding sites (BSs). We performed a search for new putative BSs on Alu elements, using a database of Position Specific Score Matrices (PSSMs). We searched consensus Alu sequences

SUBMITTER: Polak P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1513395 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature