The protein CTCF is required for the enhancer blocking activity of vertebrate insulators
Open accessAbstract
An insulator is a DNA sequence that can act as a barrier to the influences of neighboring cis-acting elements, preventing gene activation, for example, when located between an enhancer and a promoter. We have identified a 42 bp fragment of the chicken beta-globin insulator that is both necessary and sufficient for enhancer blocking activity in human cells. We show that this sequence is the binding site for CTCF, a previously identified eleven-zinc finger DNA-binding protein that is highly conserved in vertebrates. CTCF sites are present in all of the vertebrate enhancer-blocking elements we have examined. We suggest that directional enhancer blocking by CTCF is a conserved component of gene regulation in vertebrates.
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CTCF binding has an insulating capacity, effectively blocking signals between enhancers and their target genes in the β-globin and H19/Igf2 loci.
“More unusually, it emerged that CTCF binding has an insulating capacity, effectively blocking signals between enhancers and their target genes in the β-globin and H19/Igf2 loci [323–326].”
From Transcriptional enhancers and their communication with gene promoters (2021) · cites this paper as [323]
Insulators are bound by the transcription factor CTCF.
“Insulators are bound by the transcription factor CTCF (Bell et al., 1999), but only a minority of CTCF sites function as insulators (Liu et al., 2015).”
From Insulated Neighborhoods: Structural and Functional Units of Mammalian Gene Control (2016) · cites this paper as Bell et al., 1999
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- Authors
- Bell, A. C., West, A. G., & Felsenfeld, G.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Corresponding author
- Felsenfeld, Gary
- Venue
- Cell
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1999-08
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 387-396
- ISSN
- 0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2019937806
- Cited by
- 1,101
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 35 · 2016: 35 · 2015: 43 · 2014: 51 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 56
- FWCI
- 13.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Cell (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Creations of Advanced Catalytic Transformation for the Sustainable Manufacturing at Low Energy, Low Environmental Load
- 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
- CTCF, enhancer blocking, zinc finger DNA-binding protein, cis-regulatory elements, gene expression regulation, enhancer-promoter interactions
- MeSH terms
- CCCTC-Binding Factor, Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Base Sequence, Binding Sites, Cell Nucleus, Chickens, Deoxyribonuclease I, DNA-Binding Proteins, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Globins, Humans, Molecular Sequence Data, Oligodeoxyribonucleotides, Repressor Proteins, Transcription Factors, Protein Biosynthesis, Genetic Variation, Vertebrates, Zinc Fingers, Conserved Sequence, K562 Cells
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