Search results for "Enhancer Elements"
showing 5 items of 35 documents
Functional characterization of the sea urchin sns chromatin insulator in erythroid cells.
2005
Abstract Chromatin insulators are regulatory elements that determine domains of genetic functions. We have previously described the characterization of a 265 bp insulator element, termed sns, localized at the 3′ end of the early histone H2A gene of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. This sequence contains three cis-acting elements (Box A, Box B, and Box C + T) all needed for the enhancer-blocking activity in both sea urchin and human cells. The goal of this study was to further characterize the sea urchin sns insulator in the erythroid environment. We employed colony assays in human (K562) and mouse (MEL) erythroid cell lines. We tested the capability of sns to interfere with the communi…
Context-dependent Pax-5 repression of a PU.1/NF-κB regulated reporter gene in B lineage cells
2001
Enhancers located in the 3' end of the locus in part regulate immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) gene expression. One of these enhancers, HS 1,2, is developmentally regulated by DNA binding proteins like NF-kappaB, Pax-5 and the protein complex NF-alphaP in B lineage cells. Here we report that NF-alphaP is the ets protein PU.1. A glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-pulldown assay demonstrated that PU.1 can physically interact with NF-kappaB in solution. Experiments in COS cells showed that PU.1 and NF-kappaB (p50/c-Rel) can activate transcription of an enhancer linked reporter gene. The paired domain protein Pax-5 has previously been shown to repress enhancer-dependent transcription. Additional c…
The Sea Urchin sns Insulator Blocks CMV Enhancer following Integration in Human Cells
2001
Insulators are a new class of genetic elements that attenuate enhancer function directionally. Previously, we characterized in sea urchin a 265-bp-long insulator, termed sns. To test insulator activity following stable integration in human cells, we placed sns between the CMV enhancer and a tk promoter up-stream of a GFP transgene of plasmid or retroviral vectors. In contrast to controls, cells transfected or transduced with insulated constructs displayed a barely detectable fluorescence. Southern blot and PCR ruled out vector rearrangement following integration into host DNA; RNase protection confirmed the enhancer blocking activity. Finally, we demonstrate that two cis-acting sequences, p…
Functional characterization of the enhancer blocking element of the sea urchin early histone gene cluster reveals insulator properties and three esse…
2000
Insulator elements can be functionally identified by their ability to shield promoters from regulators in a position-dependent manner or their ability to protect adjacent transgenes from position effects. We have previously reported the identification of a 265 bp sns DNA fragment at the 3' end of the sea urchin H2A early histone gene that blocked expression of a reporter gene in transgenic embryos when placed between the enhancer and the promoter. Here we show that sns interferes with enhancer-promoter interaction in a directional manner. When sns is placed between the H2A modulator and the inducible tet operator, the modulator is barred from interaction with the basal promoter. However, th…
The distributions of protein coding genes within chromatin domains in relation to human disease.
2019
Abstract Background Our understanding of the nuclear chromatin structure has increased hugely during the last years mainly as a consequence of the advances in chromatin conformation capture methods like Hi-C. The unprecedented resolution of genome-wide interaction maps shows functional consequences that extend the initial thought of an efficient DNA packaging mechanism: gene regulation, DNA repair, chromosomal translocations and evolutionary rearrangements seem to be only the peak of the iceberg. One key concept emerging from this research is the topologically associating domains (TADs) whose functional role in gene regulation and their association with disease is not fully untangled. Resul…