Abstract
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.
Keywords
EnhancerAction (physics)Computational biologyBiologyGeneticsPhysicsGeneTranscription factor
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Publication Info
- Year
- 2000
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 381-387
- Citations
- 140
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Steve Fiering,
Emma Whitelaw,
David I. K. Martin
(2000).
To be or not to be active: the stochastic nature of enhancer action.
BioEssays
, 22
(4)
, 381-387.
https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(200004)22:4<381::aid-bies8>3.3.co;2-5
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(200004)22:4<381::aid-bies8>3.3.co;2-5