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Title: Occupancy by key transcription factors is a more accurate predictor of enhancer activity than histone modifications or chromatin accessibility

Journal Article · · Epigenetics & Chromatin
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [3];  [1]
  1. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
  2. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  3. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA (United States); Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  4. Stanford University, Stanford, CA (United States)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA (United States)
  6. St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN (US)

Regulated gene expression controls organismal development, and variation in regulatory patterns has been implicated in complex traits. Thus accurate prediction of enhancers is important for further understanding of these processes. Genome-wide measurement of epigenetic features, such as histone modifications and occupancy by transcription factors, is improving enhancer predictions, but the contribution of these features to prediction accuracy is not known. Given the importance of the hematopoietic transcription factor TAL1 for erythroid gene activation, we predicted candidate enhancers based on genomic occupancy by TAL1 and measured their activity. Contributions of multiple features to enhancer prediction were evaluated based on the results of these and other studies. Results: TAL1-bound DNA segments were active enhancers at a high rate both in transient transfections of cultured cells (39 of 79, or 56%) and transgenic mice (43 of 66, or 65%). The level of binding signal for TAL1 or GATA1 did not help distinguish TAL1-bound DNA segments as active versus inactive enhancers, nor did the density of regulation-related histone modifications. A meta-analysis of results from this and other studies (273 tested predicted enhancers) showed that the presence of TAL1, GATA1, EP300, SMAD1, H3K4 methylation, H3K27ac, and CAGE tags at DNase hypersensitive sites gave the most accurate predictors of enhancer activity, with a success rate over 80% and a median threefold increase in activity. Chromatin accessibility assays and the histone modifications H3K4me1 and H3K27ac were sensitive for finding enhancers, but they have high false positive rates unless transcription factor occupancy is also included. Conclusions: Occupancy by key transcription factors such as TAL1, GATA1, SMAD1, and EP300, along with evidence of transcription, improves the accuracy of enhancer predictions based on epigenetic features.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1190586
Journal Information:
Epigenetics & Chromatin, Vol. 8, Issue 16; ISSN 1756-8935
Publisher:
BioMed CentralCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 71 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Multiple enhancer regions govern the transcription of CCN2 during embryonic development journal December 2017
Repurposing of promoters and enhancers during mammalian evolution journal October 2018
C/EBPβ regulates Vegf gene expression in granulosa cells undergoing luteinization during ovulation in female rats journal January 2019
DNA demethylation facilitates the specific transcription of the mouse X-linked Tsga8 gene in round spermatids† journal December 2018
Towards a map of cis-regulatory sequences in the human genome journal May 2018
An integrative view of the regulatory and transcriptional landscapes in mouse hematopoiesis posted_content January 2020
Enhancer prediction in the human genome by probabilistic modeling of the chromatin feature patterns posted_content June 2020
Total Functional Score of Enhancer Elements Identifies Lineage-Specific Enhancers That Drive Differentiation of Pancreatic Cells journal January 2020
Blood disease–causing and –suppressing transcriptional enhancers: general principles and GATA2 mechanisms journal July 2019
Properties of STAT1 and IRF1 enhancers and the influence of SNPs journal March 2017
Establishment of regulatory elements during erythro-megakaryopoiesis identifies hematopoietic lineage-commitment points journal May 2018
Recent advances in high-throughput approaches to dissect enhancer function journal January 2017
Limb-Enhancer Genie: An accessible resource of accurate enhancer predictions in the developing limb journal August 2017
Systematic integration of GATA transcription factors and epigenomes via IDEAS paints the regulatory landscape of hematopoietic cells journal November 2019
BCL11A enhancer dissection by Cas9-mediated in situ saturating mutagenesis journal September 2015
Chromatin accessibility and the regulatory epigenome journal January 2019
Chromatin structure dynamics during the mitosis-to-G1 phase transition journal November 2019
Exploiting regulatory heterogeneity to systematically identify enhancers with high accuracy journal December 2018
Systematic integration of GATA transcription factors and epigenomes via IDEAS paints the regulatory landscape of mouse hematopoietic cells posted_content August 2019
A hyperactive transcriptional state marks genome reactivation at the mitosis–G1 transition journal June 2016
Genome-wide enhancer annotations differ significantly in genomic distribution, evolution, and function journal June 2019
Beyond the Exome: The Non-coding Genome and Enhancers in Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Malformations of Cortical Development journal July 2019
The Conserved Non-Coding Sequence 2 (CNS2) Enhances CD69 Transcription through Cooperation between the Transcription Factors Oct1 and RUNX1 journal August 2019
GATA factor transcriptional activity: Insights from genome‐wide binding profiles journal October 2019
A hyperactive transcriptional state marks genome reactivation at the mitosis-G1 transition posted_content May 2016
Enhancer transcription identifies cis-regulatory elements for photoreceptor cell types posted_content January 2019
An integrative view of the regulatory and transcriptional landscapes in mouse hematopoiesis journal March 2020
Enhancer prediction in the human genome by probabilistic modelling of the chromatin feature patterns journal July 2020
Limb-Enhancer Genie: An accessible resource of accurate enhancer predictions in the developing limb text January 2017
Enhancer transcription identifies cis -regulatory elements for photoreceptor cell types journal January 2020
An integrative view of the regulatory and transcriptional landscapes in mouse hematopoiesis. text January 2020
Concise Review: Epigenetic Regulation of Hematopoiesis: Biological Insights and Therapeutic Applications journal October 2017
The proto-oncogenic protein TAL1 controls TGF-β1 signaling through interaction with SMAD3 journal June 2016
Conserved Noncoding Elements in the Most Distant Genera of Cephalochordates: The Goldilocks Principle journal July 2016
Identification of gene specific cis-regulatory elements during differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells: An integrative approach using high-throughput datasets. journalarticle January 2019
Spatiotemporal regulation of enhancers during cardiogenesis text January 2021
Mapping cell type-specific transcriptional enhancers using high affinity, lineage-specific Ep300 bioChIP-seq journal January 2017