Editor's Summary

23 November 2006

Gene regulators unmasked

Identifying the non-coding DNA sequences that act at a distance to regulate patterns of gene expression is not a simple matter; one useful pointer is evolutionary sequence conservation. An in vivo analysis of 167 non-coding elements in the human genome that are extremely conserved based on comparisons with pufferfish, rat and mouse genomes, has identified 75 previously unknown tissue-specific enhancers. These are active in embryos on day 11, most of them directing expression in the developing nervous system. The success of this method suggests that the further 5,500 non-coding sequences conserved between humans and pufferfish may yield another new batch of gene enhancers.

Letter: In vivo enhancer analysis of human conserved non-coding sequences

Len A. Pennacchio, Nadav Ahituv, Alan M. Moses, Shyam Prabhakar, Marcelo A. Nobrega, Malak Shoukry, Simon Minovitsky, Inna Dubchak, Amy Holt, Keith D. Lewis, Ingrid Plajzer-Frick, Jennifer Akiyama, Sarah De Val, Veena Afzal, Brian L. Black, Olivier Couronne, Michael B. Eisen, Axel Visel and Edward M. Rubin

doi:10.1038/nature05295

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (316K) | Supplementary information