Repurposing of promoters and enhancers during mammalian evolution

Francesco N. Carelli (), Angélica Liechti, Jean Halbert, Maria Warnefors and Henrik Kaessmann ()
Additional contact information
Francesco N. Carelli: University of Lausanne
Angélica Liechti: University of Lausanne
Jean Halbert: University of Lausanne
Maria Warnefors: Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH), DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance
Henrik Kaessmann: Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH), DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Promoters and enhancers—key controllers of gene expression—have long been distinguished from each other based on their function. However, recent work suggested that common architectural and functional features might have facilitated the conversion of one type of element into the other during evolution. Here, based on cross-mammalian analyses of epigenome and transcriptome data, we provide support for this hypothesis by detecting 445 regulatory elements with signatures of activity turnover (termed P/E elements). Most events represent transformations of putative ancestral enhancers into promoters, leading to the emergence of species-specific transcribed loci or 5′ exons. Distinct GC sequence compositions and stabilizing 5′ splicing (U1) regulatory motif patterns may have predisposed P/E elements to regulatory repurposing, and changes in the U1 and polyadenylation signal densities and distributions likely drove the evolutionary activity switches. Our work suggests that regulatory repurposing facilitated regulatory innovation and the origination of new genes and exons during evolution.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06544-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-06544-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06544-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().