The precise control of gene activity is essential for cell specialisation and the development of healthy organisms. While our understanding of enhancers—DNA sequences that activate genes—has advanced significantly, silencers, which repress gene activity, are much less understood, despite their equally critical role. A combination of technical challenges and research biases has made it difficult for scientists to locate silencers on a genome-wide scale—until now. Using a new method called “Silencer-seq”, Alexander Stark’s lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) identified hundreds of silencers in the fruit fly genome. Their findings are published in the journal Molecular Cell.
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