Researchers at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology have uncovered new evidence that two major types of gene-controlling DNA sequences, promoters and enhancers, operate with a shared logic and often perform the same jobs. The finding, made possible through a high-throughput assay they developed called QUASARR-seq, could reshape how scientists design gene therapies, interpret disease-related mutations, and understand cancer genetics.
New research from the lab of Haiyuan Yu, Tisch University Professor of Computational Biology at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and faculty at the Weill Institute, reveals that drawing a distinction between the two classes gene controllers may be too black and white—they seem to respond to the same biological rules and act in concert.
In a study published in Nature Communications on Jan. 30 and led by Mauricio Paramo, a graduate student at the Weill Institute, the team developed a technology capable of measuring an element’s promoter and enhancer activity simultaneously, in close collaboration with the lab of John Lis, Barbara McClintock Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics. This is significant because, until now, most technologies could measure only one function at a time, leaving open the question of whether—and how—the two activities interact inside the same DNA sequence.
