This article appears in the following Briefings in Functional Genomics and Proteomics issue: Special Issue: Non-Coding Regulatory Regions in Genomes [View the issue table of contents]
Special Issue Papers |
Pan-vertebrate conserved non-coding sequences associated with developmental regulation
Corresponding author. Greg Elgar, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Rd, London E1 4NS, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 3049; Fax: +44 (0)20 8983 0973; E-mail: g.Elgar{at}qmul.ac.uk
Whilst coding sequences are readily recognised in vertebrate genomes using computational approaches, the identification of non-coding regulatory sequences has traditionally been much more difficult, due to their small size and, as a general rule, low sequence homology between genomes. Nevertheless, a small proportion of non-coding sequence is very highly conserved across the entire vertebrate radiation. This review will look at the specific properties of these sequences, how they have been identified and assayed functionally, and current progress in the quest to identify and understand the underlying language and grammar encoded within them. I will also discuss the evolution of these elements, and examine their emerging and likely roles in disease. Together these analyses are starting to unravel how conserved non-coding regions function at the molecular level.
Keywords: non-coding DNA, regulatory sequence, CNEs, vertebrate evolution, comparative genomics, bioinformatics