Dissection of a Ciona regulatory element reveals complexity of cross-species enhancer activity.

ABSTRACT: Vertebrate genomes share numerous conserved non-coding elements, many of which function as enhancer elements and are hypothesised to be under evolutionary constraint due to a need to be bound by combinations of sequence-specific transcription factors. In contrast, few such conserved elements can be detected between vertebrates and their closest invertebrate relatives. Despite this lack of sequence identity, cross-species transgenesis has identified some cases where non-coding DNA from invertebrates drives reporter gene expression in transgenic vertebrates in patterns reminiscent of the expression of vertebrate orthologues. Such instances are presumed to reflect the presence of conserved suites of binding sites in the regulatory regions of invertebrate and vertebrate orthologues, such that

SUBMITTER: Chen WC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4010673 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature