3C-based methods to detect long-range chromatin interactions

Transcriptional regulatory regions are often located several thousand bases from the gene that they control. To function, the chromatin strand forms loops to juxtapose distal regions with the promoter. These long-range chromatin interactions have profound influences on the regulation of gene expression and mapping these interactions is currently a subject of intensive investigation. Chromosome conformation capture (3C) technology and its derivatives have been widely used to detect chromatin interactions and greatly contributed to understanding of the relationship between genome organization and genome function. Here we review these 3C-based methods for the study of long-range chromatin interactions and recent exciting findings obtained by using these technologies.