The DOI matches its Crossref record; 160 of the 164 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Super-Enhancers in the Control of Cell Identity and Disease
Open accessAbstract
Super-enhancers are large clusters of transcriptional enhancers that drive expression of genes that define cell identity. Improved understanding of the roles that super-enhancers play in biology would be afforded by knowing the constellation of factors that constitute these domains and by identifying super-enhancers across the spectrum of human cell types. We describe here the population of transcription factors, cofactors, chromatin regulators, and transcription apparatus occupying super-enhancers in embryonic stem cells and evidence that super-enhancers are highly transcribed. We produce a catalog of super-enhancers in a broad range of human cell types and find that super-enhancers associate with genes that control and define the biology of these cells. Interestingly, disease-associated variation is especially enriched in the super-enhancers of disease-relevant cell types. Furthermore, we find that cancer cells generate super-enhancers at oncogenes and other genes important in tumor pathogenesis. Thus, super-enhancers play key roles in human cell identity in health and in disease.
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“In mammals, cellular identity is established prenatally and maintained by H3K27ac-enriched super-enhancers (Hnisz et al., 2013; Whyte et al., 2013).”
From Loss of epigenetic information as a cause of mammalian aging (2023) · cites this paper as Hnisz et al., 2013
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“The level of the active enhancer chromatin mark, H3K27ac, is not skewed in a similar manner towards these two locations, indicating that these regions are not super-enhancers”
From The transcriptional cofactor TRIM33 prevents apoptosis in B lymphoblastic leukemia by deactivating a single enhancer (2015) · cites this paper as Hnisz et al., 2013
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Super-enhancers commonly drive high-level expression of tissue-specific genes, including miRNA genes, with evolutionarily conserved cell type-specific function11–13.”
From Gain-of-function mutation of microRNA-140 in human skeletal dysplasia (2019) · cites this paper as [13]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“SEs in both HCC and TAN were associated with GO terms related to metabolic genes (e.g. CYP3A4, SLC38A4, and IGFBP1) (Fig. 2c)20,21,58.”
From Multi-omic analysis of hepatocellular carcinoma reveals aberrant cis-regulatory changes and dysregulated retrotransposons with prognostic potential (2025) · cites this paper as [20]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Clusters of multiple enhancers, referred to as super enhancers, are particularly important in driving the expression of cell identity genes (6).”
From Brain cell type–specific enhancer–promoter interactome maps and disease - risk association (2019) · cites this paper as [6]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Many Hep‐IDCONNECT TFs, including NR1H3 and THRB, do not display typically used features to define hepatocyte identity TFs such as hepatocyte‐specific expression and association with super‐enhancers (Hnisz et al, 2013; Dubois et al, 2020a; Table EV3).”
From An extended transcription factor regulatory network controls hepatocyte identity (2023) · cites this paper as Hnisz et al, 2013
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Some enhancers reside in clusters of a handful116 to even hundreds (‘super enhancers’76,117), whereas many are solo.”
From Towards a comprehensive catalogue of validated and target-linked human enhancers (2020) · cites this paper as [117]
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In the citing paper
“we detected binding of liver-restricted TFs (C/EBPα/β, HNF1A, and HNF4A), pioneering TFs (CEBPα/β, FOXA2, and FOXA3), and Wnt-signaling TFs (TCF7) at individual constituent enhancers (Fig. 3b)20,21.”
From Multi-omic analysis of hepatocellular carcinoma reveals aberrant cis-regulatory changes and dysregulated retrotransposons with prognostic potential (2025) · cites this paper as [20]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“suggesting that H3K27M participates in the formation of super enhancer-like elements purported to play a key role in cancer14.”
From Therapeutic targeting of polycomb and BET bromodomain proteins in diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (2017) · cites this paper as [14]
In the citing paper
“This mystery, which we will call the enhancer-gene specificity conundrum, is important to solve because the majority of disease-associated non-coding variation occurs in the vicinity of enhancers and thus likely impacts these enhancers’ target genes (Ernst et al., 2011; Farh et al., 2015; Hnisz et al., 2013; Maurano et al., 2012).”
From Insulated Neighborhoods: Structural and Functional Units of Mammalian Gene Control (2016) · cites this paper as Hnisz et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“Tens of thousands of non-coding genetic variants have been linked with various human diseases and traits in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and the majority of these variants occur in enhancers (Ernst et al., 2011; Farh et al., 2015; Hnisz et al., 2013; Maurano et al., 2012).”
From Insulated Neighborhoods: Structural and Functional Units of Mammalian Gene Control (2016) · cites this paper as Hnisz et al., 2013
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Citations
Cites
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Core Transcriptional Regulatory Circuitry in Human Embryonic Stem Cells
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Partitioning heritability by functional annotation using genome-wide association summary statistics
ReproGen Consortium, Finucane, H. K., Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, The RACI Consortium, Bulik-Sullivan, B., Gusev, A., Trynka, G., Reshef, Y., Loh, P.-R., Anttila, V., et al. (2015) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/ng.3404 · Cited by 2,604
“We did not see a large enrichment of super-enhancers vs. regular enhancers; the estimates for enrichment were 1.8x (s.e. 0 .2) for super-enhancers vs. 1.6x (s.e. 0 .1) for regular enhancers from the same paper [19] (denoted “H3K27ac (Hnisz)” in Figure 4).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialCoactivator condensation at super-enhancers links phase separation and gene control
Sabari, B. R., Dall’Agnese, A., Boija, A., Klein, I. A., Coffey, E. L., Shrinivas, K., Abraham, B. J., Hannett, N. M., Zamudio, A. V., Manteiga, J. C., et al. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aar3958 · Cited by 2,595
“SEs are established by the binding of master TFs to enhancer clusters (14, 15).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationHoward, D. M., Adams, M. J., Clarke, T.-K., Hafferty, J. D., Gibson, J., Shirali, M., Coleman, J. R. I., Hagenaars, S. P., Ward, J., Wigmore, E. M., et al. (2019) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41593-018-0326-7 · Cited by 2,565
Long non-coding RNAs: definitions, functions, challenges and recommendations
Mattick, J. S., Amaral, P., Carninci, P., Carpenter, S. B., Chang, H. Y., Chen, L., Chen, R., Dean, C., Dinger, M. E., Fitzgerald, K. A., et al. (2023) · Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology · doi:10.1038/s41580-022-00566-8 · Cited by 2,509
Genetic and epigenetic fine mapping of causal autoimmune disease variants
Farh, K. K.-H., Marson, A., Zhu, J., Kleinewietfeld, M., Housley, W. J., Beik, S., Shoresh, N., Whitton, H., Ryan, R. J. H., Shishkin, A. A., et al. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature13835 · Cited by 1,956
Metadata
- Authors
- Hnisz, D., Abraham, B. J., Lee, T. I., Lau, A., Saint-André, V., Sigova, A. A., Hoke, H. A., & Young, R. A.
- Affiliations
- Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Young, Richard A.
- Venue
- Cell
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-11
- Volume
- 155
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 934-947
- ISSN
- 0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3841062
- OpenAlex
- W2004966039
- Cited by
- 3,662
- References
- 164
- Citations by year
- 2026: 182 · 2025: 294 · 2024: 332 · 2023: 321 · 2022: 360 · 2021: 406 · 2020: 331 · 2019: 315 · 2018: 291 · 2017: 259 · 2016: 232 · 2015: 215 · 2014: 110 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 83.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Cell (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PMC
- Funders
- University of California
- National Institutes of Health (CA146445, HG002668, CA109901, P30AG10161, R01AG36042, R01AG17917, RC2AG36547)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Chromatin Remodeling and Cancer
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Epigenetics and DNA Methylation
- Keywords
- super-enhancers, enhancers, cell identity, transcription factors, chromatin regulators, embryonic stem cells, oncogenes, cancer, enhancer transcription, human cell types
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Chromatin, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Humans, Neoplasms, RNA Polymerase II, Transcription Factors, Transcription, Genetic, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Embryonic Stem Cells
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