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FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS

Ultraconservation of enhancers is not ultranecessary

Nature Genetics volume 53, pages 429–430 (2021)Cite this article

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Stretches of non-coding DNA that have remained identical across millions of years of evolution are typically assumed to have functional regulatory roles that would be compromised by any amount of nucleotide substitution. A new study finds that these ultraconserved regions are more robust to mutagenesis than their level of conservation would suggest.

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Fig. 1: Diagram of a transgenic mouse embryo at embryonic day 11.5 (akin to those examined by Snetkova et al.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Maureen Pittman & Katherine S. Pollard

  2. Gladstone Institute of Data Science & Biotechnology, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Maureen Pittman & Katherine S. Pollard

  3. Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Katherine S. Pollard

Authors
  1. Maureen Pittman
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  2. Katherine S. Pollard
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Correspondence to Katherine S. Pollard.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Pittman, M., Pollard, K.S. Ultraconservation of enhancers is not ultranecessary. Nat Genet 53, 429–430 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-021-00839-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-021-00839-6

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