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To be or not to be active: the stochastic nature of enhancer action
Author(s) -
Fiering Steve,
Whitelaw Emma,
Martin David I.K.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(200004)22:4<381::aid-bies8>3.0.co;2-e
Transcriptional enhancers are traditionally considered to regulate the rate at which a linked promoter transcribes mRNA, but recent experiments suggest a reevaluation of this model is necessary. Single‐cell assays of transgenes reveal that enhancers increase the probability that a reporter gene will be active, but have little or no effect on the transcription rate once a gene has been activated. These results raise the question of how enhancers affect gene expression in their native contexts. A simple interpretation is that enhancers act in a stochastic fashion to increase the probability that a regulated gene will be transcribed; such a model is compatible with programs of cell differentiation in which multiple similar cells subject to similar environmental stimuli do not respond uniformly. BioEssays 22:381–387, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.