SHRI RAMSWAROOP

MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY
• NAME – SAKSHI AGNIHOTRI
• TOPIC–  TRANSCRIPTION ENHANCER AND
TRANSCRIPTION PROMOTER
• ENROLLMENT NO. - 202210902150077
• TOPIC – ENZYME ASSAY
• SUBMITTED TO – DR. NEELAM MISHRA
introduction

To understand the molecular mechanisms that govern

specific expression patterns it is important to identify the
transcriptional regulatory elements

🠶Here we review the various classes of transcriptional

regulatory elements and the current understanding of how
they function.
Transcriptional regulation

One of the mechanisms through which protein levels in the

cell are controlled is through transcriptional regulation.

Certain regions, called cis-regulatory elements, on the

DNA are footprints for the transacting proteins involved
in transcription, either for the positioning of the basic
transcriptional machinery or for the regulation
Basic transcriptional machinery

DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RNAP) which

synthesizes various types of RNA

core promoters on the DNA are used to position the

RNAP other nearby regions will regulate the transcription:

proximal promoter regions, enhancers, silencers, and
insulators
 Transcriptional Machinery

Factors involved in the accurate transcription of eukaryotic

protein-coding genes by RNA polymerase II can be classified into
three groups:

I. general (or basic) transcription factors (GTFs)

II. promoter-specific activator proteins (activators)
III. coactivators
Transcriptional regulatory elements

 promoter:
 Core Promoter
 Proximal Promoter Elements
 distal regulatory elements:
 Enhancers
 Silencers
 Insulators
 Locus Control Regions (LCR)
Promoter

promoter is a region of DNA that initiates transcription

of a particular gene

Promoters are located near the transcription start sites of

genes.

Promoters can be about 100–1000 base pairs long.

 promoter
a promoter, which is composed of a core promoter and nearby
(proximal) regulatory elements
 Core promoter definition
The core promoter is the region at the start of basic transcriptional
machinery and PIC assembly, and defines the position of the TSS.

The core promoter usually refers to the region from the transcription
start site including the TATA box, which resides approximately 30 bp
upstream of the transcriptionn initiation site.

The core promoter is a region around the TSS (+1) of a gene, which
contains several DNA elements that facilitate the binding of regulatory
proteins.
Core Promoter
Core Promoter
Proximal Promoter Elements

In Metazon, several other promoter elements exist which

are located upstream of the core promoter:
the proximal promoter elements

The proximal promoter is defined as the region

immediately upstream (up to a few hundred base pairs) from
the core promoter, and typically contains multiple binding
sites for activators.
Proximal Promoter Elements function

An interesting feature of∼60% of human genes is that their

promoter falls near a CpG island
DNA methylation is associated with transcriptional
silencing.
Methylation at CpG dinucleotides is believed to repress
transcription by blocking the ability of transcription factors to
bind their recognition sequences

The refractory nature of CpG islands to methylation suggests

that a role for proximal promoter elements may be to block the
local region from being methylated, and therefore inappropriately
Distal regulatory elements

Including:
 enhancers
 silencers
 Insulators
 locus control regions (LCR)
Enhancers

Enhancers were characterised almost 20 years ago.

Enhancers are typically composed of a cluster of TFBSs

that work cooperatively to enhance transcription and The
transcription factors that bind to enhancers are called
transcriptional activators
Enhancers location
These enhancer regions can be found:
 up- and downstream of the TSS
 within exons or introns
 in the 5 and 3 untranslated (UTR) regions of genes

and even as far as 10,000 bp in Drosophilaor 100,000 bp in

human and mouse away from the gene boundaries
Enhancers

enhancer activation often needs the binding of several

transcription factors to cis-regulatory motifs to the enhancer.

Looping in chromatin plays a role in bringing enhancers

physically close to the proximal or core promoter region of a
target gene.

Once active, the enhancer can bind to the PIC or to

tethering elements in the proximal region of the promoter
and influence (the rate of) transcription by itself.
Enhancers