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Aberrant enhancer activation is a key mechanism driving oncogene expression in many cancers. While much is known about the regulation of larger chromosome domains in eukaryotes, the details of enhancer-promoter interactions remain poorly understood. Recent work suggests co-activators like BRD4 and Mediator have little impact on enhancer-promoter interactions. In leukemias controlled by the MLL-AF4 fusion protein, we use the ultra-high resolution technique Micro-Capture-C (MCC) to show that MLL-AF4 binding promotes broad, high-density regions of enhancer-promoter interactions at a subset of key targets. These enhancers are enriched for transcription elongation factors like PAF1C and FACT, and the loss of these factors abolishes enhancer-promoter contact. This work not only provides an additional model for how MLL-AF4 is able to drive high levels of transcription at key genes in leukemia but also suggests a more general model linking enhancer-promoter crosstalk and transcription elongation.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-40981-9

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nat Commun

Publication Date

25/08/2023

Volume

14

Keywords

Humans, Nuclear Proteins, Transcription Factors, Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid, Leukemia, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Cell Cycle Proteins, Oncogene Proteins, Fusion, Myeloid-Lymphoid Leukemia Protein