Super-enhancer-mediated transcriptional regulation of gene clusters in plants.
Beall BD, Zhao H, Jiang J
Summary
PubMedWhy it matters This matters because understanding how plants switch on clusters of genes could let scientists engineer crops that produce more nutrients, natural pesticides, or medicines — and do so only in the right tissue at the right time, making them safer and more efficient.
Plants have groups of genes that work as a team to make useful chemicals — like flavors, medicines, or natural defenses. Scientists found that a special kind of genetic 'master switch' called a super-enhancer sits nearby and turns these whole gene teams on or off together. By learning how to read and edit these switches, researchers can now more precisely control what a plant makes, where, and when.
chevron_right Technical Details
Scientists discovered that special DNA 'super-switches' called super-enhancers coordinate groups of genes that work together to produce plant chemicals, offering new tools to engineer crops with better traits or higher yields of useful compounds.
Key Findings
Super-enhancers were identified for a substantial proportion of biosynthetic gene clusters in Arabidopsis thaliana, acting as master regulators of co-ordinated gene expression.
Gene clusters and their associated super-enhancers are physically co-located within the same topologically associating domains in the genome, suggesting a 3D organizational principle.
Disrupting super-enhancers using CRISPR/Cas gene editing or T-DNA insertions was enough to alter the expression of entire gene clusters, confirming their central regulatory role.
Abstract Preview
Functionally related genes are frequently organized into clusters in plant genomes, including homologous gene clusters (HGCs) derived from duplicated genes and biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) com...
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