Mining the cis-regulatory elements of Hox clusters

Hox clusters have served as a favorite system to study the role of cis-regulatory elements at multiple layers of gene regulation. Organization and regulation of Hox genes show remarkable conservation and determine the anterior-posterior body axis across the bilaterians. Identification of a variety of regulatory regions within the complex and around it, embedded primarily in the noncoding part of the corresponding genomic region that can spread 100-150 kb, is a challenging problem. Multiple experimental and computational tools need to be employed to investigate functional features of such elements. Here we discuss parallel approaches to mine the most plausible regulatory information from the noncoding sequences of Hox clusters, among diverse species.