Gene Regulatory Enhancers with Evolutionarily Conserved Activity Are More Pleiotropic than Those with Species-Specific Activity.

ABSTRACT: Studies of regulatory activity and gene expression have revealed an intriguing dichotomy: There is substantial turnover in the regulatory activity of orthologous sequences between species; however, the expression level of orthologous genes is largely conserved. Understanding how distal regulatory elements, for example, enhancers, evolve and function is critical, as alterations in gene expression levels can drive the development of both complex disease and functional divergence between species. In this study, we investigated determinants of the conservation of regulatory enhancer activity for orthologous sequences across mammalian evolution. Using liver enhancers identified from genome-wide histone modification profiles in ten diverse mammalian species, we compared orthologous sequences tha

SUBMITTER: Fish A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5737616 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature