Building integrative functional maps of gene regulation
Xu, Jinrui ; Pratt, Henry E ; Moore, Jill E ; Gerstein, Mark B. ; Weng, Zhiping
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Abstract
Every cell in the human body inherits a copy of the same genetic information. The three billion base pairs of DNA in the human genome, and the roughly 50 000 coding and non-coding genes they contain, must thus encode all the complexity of human development and cell and tissue type diversity. Differences in gene regulation, or the modulation of gene expression, enable individual cells to interpret the genome differently to carry out their specific functions. Here we discuss recent and ongoing efforts to build gene regulatory maps, which aim to characterize all sequences in a genome for their roles in regulating gene expression. Many researchers and consortia have identified such regulatory elements using functional assays and evolutionary analyses; we discuss the results, strengths, and shortcomings of their approaches. We also discuss new techniques the field can leverage and emerging challenges it will face while striving to build gene regulatory maps of ever-increasing resolution and comprehensiveness.
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Xu J, Pratt HE, Moore JE, Gerstein MB, Weng Z. Building integrative functional maps of gene regulation. Hum Mol Genet. 2022 Sep 9:ddac195. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddac195. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36083269.