Genome-wide characterization of mammalian promoters with distal enhancer functions

International audienceGene expression in mammals is precisely regulated by the combination of promoters and gene-distal regulatory regions, known as enhancers. Several studies have suggested that some promoters might have enhancer functions. However, the extent of this type of promoters and whether they actually function to regulate the expression of distal genes have remained elusive. Here, by exploiting a high-throughput enhancer reporter assay, we unravel a set of mammalian promoters displaying enhancer activity. These promoters have distinct genomic and epigenomic features and frequently interact with other gene promoters. Extensive CRISPR-Cas9 genomic manipulation demonstrated the involvement of these promoters in the cis regulation of expression of distal genes in their natural loci. Our results have important implications for the understanding of complex gene regulation in normal development and disease

Integrative classification of human coding and noncoding genes through RNA metabolism profiles

Pervasive transcription of the human genome results in a heterogeneous mix of coding RNAs and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). Only a small fraction of lncRNAs have demonstrated regulatory functions, thus making functional lncRNAs difficult to distinguish from nonfunctional transcriptional byproducts. This difficulty has resulted in numerous competing human lncRNA classifications that are complicated by a steady increase in the number of annotated lncRNAs. To address these challenges, we quantitatively examined transcription, splicing, degradation, localization and translation for coding and noncoding human genes. We observed that annotated lncRNAs had lower synthesis and higher degradation rates than mRNAs and discovered mechanistic differences explaining slower lncRNA splicing. We grouped genes into classes with similar RNA metabolism profiles, containing both mRNAs and lncRNAs to varying extents. These classes exhibited distinct RNA metabolism, different evolutionary patterns and differential sensitivity to cellular RNA-regulatory pathways. Our classification provides an alternative to genomic context-driven annotations of lncRNAs