Highly Accessed Research highlight

Making enhancers from spare parts of the genome

David Fredman1, Xianjun Dong2 and Boris Lenhard3,4*

Author Affiliations

1 Department of Molecular Evolution and Development, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria

2 Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 364 Plantation St, Worcester, MA 01605, USA

3 Institute of Clinical Sciences, Imperial College London and MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, Du Cane Road, London W12 0NN, UK

4 Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, PO Box 7803, N-5020 Bergen, Norway

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Genome Biology 2011, 12:138 doi:10.1186/gb-2011-12-12-138

Published: 29 December 2011

Abstract

New studies show that novel long-range enhancers of developmental genes can emerge by exaptation of protein-coding sequences with no previous regulatory function.

Keywords:
Comparative genomics; developmental regulation; enhancers; genomic regulatory blocks; whole-genome duplication