Non-canonical functions of enhancers: regulation of RNA polymerase III transcription, DNA replication, and V(D)J recombination

Abstract

Enhancers are the key regulators of other DNA-based processes by virtue of their unique ability to generate nucleosome-depleted regions in a highly regulated manner. Enhancers regulate cell-type-specific transcription of tRNA genes by RNA polymerase III (Pol III). They are also responsible for the binding of the origin replication complex (ORC) to DNA replication origins, thereby regulating origin utilization, replication timing, and replication-dependent chromosome breaks. Additionally, enhancers regulate V(D)J recombination by increasing access of the recombination-activating gene (RAG) recombinase to target sites and by generating non-coding enhancer RNAs and localized regions of trimethylated histone H3-K4 recognized by the RAG2 PHD domain. Thus, enhancers represent the first step in decoding the genome, and hence they regulate biological processes that, unlike RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription, do not have dedicated regulatory proteins.