摘要
As a class of cis-regulatory elements, enhancers were first identified as the genomic regions that are able to markedly increase the transcription of genes nearly 30 years ago. Enhancers can regulate gene expression in a cell-type specific and developmental stage specific manner. Although experimental technologies have been developed to identify enhancers genome-wide, the design principle of the regulatory elements and the way they rewire the transcriptional regulatory network tempo-spatially are far from clear. At present, developing predictive methods for enhanc- ers, particularly for the cell-type specific activity of enhancers, is central to computational biology. In this review, we survey the current computational approaches for active enhancer prediction and discuss future directions.
As a class of cis-regulatory elements, enhancers were first identified as the genomic regions that are able to markedly increase the transcription of genes nearly 30 years ago. Enhancers can regulate gene expression in a cell-type specific and developmental stage specific manner. Although experimental technologies have been developed to identify enhancers genome-wide, the design principle of the regulatory elements and the way they rewire the transcriptional regulatory network tempo-spatially are far from clear. At present, developing predictive methods for enhanc- ers, particularly for the cell-type specific activity of enhancers, is central to computational biology. In this review, we survey the current computational approaches for active enhancer prediction and discuss future directions.
基金
supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC, Grant No. 31271398 and 91131012)
100 Talents Project to ZZ, NSFC(Grant No.91019016)
National Basic Research Program of China(NBRPC, Grant No. 2012CB316503) to MQZ
