Can Genome Engineering be used to Target Cancer-Associated Enhancers?

Abstract

Transcriptional misregulation is involved in the development of many diseases, especially neoplastic transformation. Distal regulatory elements, such as enhancers, play a major role in specifying cell-specific transcription patterns in both normal and diseased tissues, suggesting that enhancers may be prime targets for therapeutic intervention. By focusing on modulating gene regulation mediated by cell type-specific enhancers, there is hope that normal epigenetic patterning in an affected tissue could be restored with fewer side effects than observed with treatments employing relatively nonspecific inhibitors such as epigenetic drugs. New methods employing genomic nucleases and site-specific epigenetic regulators targeted to specific genomic regions, using either artificial DNA-binding proteins or RNA–DNA interactions, may allow precise genome engineering at enhancers. However, this field is still in its infancy and further refinements that increase specificity and efficiency are clearly required.

Keywords::

• CRISPRs
• DNA methylation
• enhancers
• epigenetic therapy
• gene expression
• genome engineering
• genomic nuclease
• histone modifications
• TALENs
• ZFNs

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by R21 HG006761 from the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by R21 HG006761 from the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.