Beyond the ENCODE project: using genomics and epigenomics strategies to study enhancer evolution

Abstract

The complex expression patterns observed for many genes are often regulated by distal transcription enhancers. Changes in the nucleotide sequences of enhancers may therefore lead to changes in gene expression, representing a central mechanism by which organisms evolve. With the development of the experimental technique of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), in which discrete regions of the genome bound by specific proteins can be identified, it is now possible to identify transcription factor binding events (putative cis -regulatory elements) in entire genomes. Comparing protein–DNA binding maps allows us, for the first time, to attempt to identify regulatory differences and infer global patterns of change in gene expression across species. Here, we review studies that used genome-wide ChIP to study the evolution of enhancers. The trend is one of high divergence of cis -regulatory elements between species, possibly compensated by extensive creation and loss of regulatory elements and rewiring of their target genes. We speculate on the meaning of the differences observed and discuss that although ChIP experiments identify the biochemical event of protein–DNA interaction, it cannot determine whether the event results in a biological function, and therefore more studies are required to establish the effect of divergence of binding events on species-specific gene expression.