Synthetic enhancer design by in silico compensatory evolution reveals flexibility and constraint in cis-regulation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Models that incorporate specific chemical mechanisms have been successful in describing the activity of Drosophila developmental enhancers as a function of underlying transcription factor binding motifs. Despite this, the minimum set of mechanisms required to reconstruct an enhancer from its constituent parts is not known. Synthetic biology offers the potential to test the sufficiency of known mechanisms to describe the activity of enhancers, as well as to uncover constraints on the number, order, and spacing of motifs.

Results

Using a functional model and in silico compensatory evolution, we generated putative synthetic even-skipped stripe 2 enhancers with varying degrees of similarity to the natural enhancer. These elements represent the evolutionary trajectorie

SUBMITTER: Barr KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5708098 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature