High-ordered Chromatin Structure and Long-range Regulation of Gene Transcription

Abstract: The precise control of gene expression is essential for cell differentiation， individual development and normal life activity of a cell. Transcriptional regulation is a key step to control gene expression in eukaryocyte. The development of chromatin conformation capture (3C) technique with its derived methods and the encyclopedia of DNA elements (ENCODE) project started from 2003 have revealed thousands of putative regulatory elements scattered throughout genome. These regulatory elements are far from their target genes and located either on the chromosome same as their target genes or on the different chromosomes. Transcription of one target gene can be regulated by multiple regulatory elements and one regulatory sequence can also control more than one target genes，which forms a complicated net work at the level of high-ordered chromatin structure. The commonly accepted chromatin loop model is that DNA sequences between enhancers and promoters form loops to allow the distal regulatory sequences to interact directly with the promoters. Here we briefly review the discovery of long-range regulation of gene expression， development of 3C and the derived techniques， related mechanism involved in longrange regulation and facing challenges within the area.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2014.11.0002