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Imprinting and looping: epigenetic marks control interactions between regulatory elements
Author(s) -
Kato Yuzuru,
Sasaki Hiroyuki
Publication year - 2005
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/bies.20171
Subject(s) - epigenetics , chromatin , genomic imprinting , imprinting (psychology) , biology , regulation of gene expression , genetics , gene , regulatory sequence , computational biology , gene expression , dna methylation
Gene regulation involves various cis ‐regulatory elements that can act at a distance. They may physically interact each other or with their target genes to exert their effects. Such interactions are beginning to be uncovered in the imprinted Igf2/H19 domain.1 The differentially methylated regions (DMRs), containing insulators, silencers and activators, were shown to have physical contacts between them. The interactions were changeable depending on their epigenetic state, presumably enabling Igf2 to move between an active and a silent chromatin domain. The study gives us a novel view on how regulatory elements influence gene expression and how epigenetic modifications modulate their long‐range effects. BioEssays 27:1–4, 2005. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.