Dr. Bing Ren
University of California, San Diego
“Mapping the Genome's Second Code”

Control of eukaryotic gene expression involves combinatorial interactions between transcription factors and regulatory sequences in the genome. In addition, chromatin structure and modification states play key roles in determining the competence of transcription. In recent years, the sequencing of various eukaryotic genomes and the systematic characterization of transcribed sequences have intensified the efforts to decipher the regulatory information in the genome. I'll describe a high throughput approach, combining ChIP-on-chip with high-resolution genome-tiling arrays, for mapping the transcriptional regulatory elements in the human genome. Using this strategy, my lab has been able to identify promoters and enhancers in the human genome and characterize the chromatin modification signatures associated with these sequences.
We have further developed computational algorithms that exploit the chromatin signatures to identify new promoters and enhancers in the human genome. Our results suggest a histone code for distinct classes of transcriptional regulatory elements, offering insights into the functional relationships between chromatin modifications and regulatory activity in human cells and providing a new resource for the functional annotation of the human genome.