| First Author | Ren G | Year | 2017 |
| Journal | Mol Cell | Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 6 | Pages | 1049-1058.e6 |
| PubMed ID | 28938092 | Mgi Jnum | J:251945 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6106788 | Doi | 10.1016/j.molcel.2017.08.026 |
| Citation | Ren G, et al. (2017) CTCF-Mediated Enhancer-Promoter Interaction Is a Critical Regulator of Cell-to-Cell Variation of Gene Expression. Mol Cell 67(6):1049-1058.e6 |
| abstractText | Recent studies indicate that even a homogeneous population of cells display heterogeneity in gene expression and response to environmental stimuli. Although promoter structure critically influences the cell-to-cell variation of gene expression in bacteria and lower eukaryotes, it remains unclear what controls the gene expression noise in mammals. Here we report that CTCF decreases cell-to-cell variation of expression by stabilizing enhancer-promoter interaction. We show that CTCF binding sites are interwoven with enhancers within topologically associated domains (TADs) and a positive correlation is found between CTCF binding and the activity of the associated enhancers. Deletion of CTCF sites compromises enhancer-promoter interactions. Using single-cell flow cytometry and single-molecule RNA-FISH assays, we demonstrate that knocking down of CTCF or deletion of a CTCF binding site results in increased cell-to-cell variation of gene expression, indicating that long-range promoter-enhancer interaction mediated by CTCF plays important roles in controlling the cell-to-cell variation of gene expression in mammalian cells. |
