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Updated: Jan 21, 2026
08:12
A Web-Based Workflow for Selecting Gene- and Tissue-Specific Enhancers
Published on: July 18, 2025
632
A principled strategy for mapping enhancers to genes
Dongkyeong Kim1, Hongjoo An1, Randall S Shearer1
1Hunter James Kelly Research Institute, Department of Biochemistry, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 14203, USA.
Scientific Reports
|August 1, 2019
Summary
Researchers developed a new method to map gene enhancers, crucial for understanding gene regulation. This approach successfully identified two key enhancers controlling Myrf gene expression in oligodendrocytes, advancing the study of transcriptional networks.
Area of Science:
- Genomics
- Molecular Biology
- Developmental Neuroscience
Background:
- Identifying gene regulatory elements, specifically enhancers, is crucial for understanding gene expression.
- Oligodendrocyte development relies on precise gene regulation, but enhancers controlling key genes like Myrf remain largely uncharacterized.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a principled strategy for mapping enhancers to their target genes.
- To identify novel oligodendrocyte enhancers that regulate the expression of Myrf, a master regulator in oligodendrocyte development.
Main Methods:
- Delineation of topologically associating domains (TADs) to define genomic neighborhoods for target genes.
- Genome-wide identification of putative enhancers within the Myrf TAD.
- Epigenome editing experiments to functionally validate enhancer activity.
Main Results:
- The strategy successfully narrowed down the search for Myrf enhancers from the entire genome to six putative loci within the Myrf TAD.
- Epigenome editing confirmed that two of these identified enhancers directly regulate Myrf expression.
- The identified enhancers are critical for oligodendrocyte development.
Conclusions:
- The developed method offers a simple, principled, and powerful approach for systematic enhancer-gene mapping.
- This strategy can be broadly applied across diverse cell types to decipher complex transcriptional regulatory networks.
- The findings provide crucial insights into the regulation of Myrf and oligodendrocyte development.
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