Locus Control Regions (LCRs)

Michael Bulger, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA
Mark Groudine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA

Published online: September 2005

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0005034

Locus control regions (LCRs) are defined as DNA sequence elements that confer high-level, tissue-specific expression to stably integrated transgenes in a position-independent manner. As such, LCRs mediate gene activation and render a high proportion of genomic integration sites permissive for such expression, and are distinguished from simple enhancers.

Keywords: transcription; chromatin; enhancer; promoter; gene regulation

Figure 1. Expression in mice of transgenes containing different regulatory elements. A hypothetical transgene is integrated at random genomic sites in mice linked to only its promoter (left panel), the promoter and a classical enhancer (middle panel), or the promoter and a locus control region (LCR; right panel). The sorts of expression patterns that might be expected among different mice, each containing the transgene in a different integration site, in each case are shown: the darker the shading the higher the level of expression; no shading indicates no expression.
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 References
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 Further Reading
    Blackwood EM and Kadonaga JT (1998) Going the distance: a current view of enhancer action. Science 281: 61–63.
    Bulger M and Groudine M (1999) Looping versus linking: toward a model for long-distance gene activation. Genes and Development 13: 2465–2477.
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    Ellis J, Tan-Un KC, Harper A, et al. (1996) A dominant chromatin-opening activity in 5¢ hypersensitive site 3 of the human beta-globin locus control region. EMBO Journal 15: 562–568.
    Festenstein R, Sharghi-Namini S, Fox M, et al. (1999) Heterochromatin protein 1 modifies mammalian PEV in a dose- and chromosomal-context-dependent manner. Nature Genetics 23: 457–461.
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    Li Q, Harju S and Peterson KR (1999) Locus control regions: coming of age at a decade plus. Trends in Genetics 15: 403–408.
    McMorrow T, van den Wijngaard A, Wollenschlaeger A, et al. (2000) Activation of the beta globin locus by transcription factors and chromatin modifiers. EMBO Journal 19: 4986–4996.
    Travers A (1999) Chromatin modification by DNA tracking. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 96: 13634–13637.

Related Sub-Topics:

Nucleic Acid Structure | Transcription | Molecular Genetics of Common and Complex Disease | Gene and Genome Structure and Organisation | Epigenetics and Disease | Transcription of DNA | Transcriptional Regulation | DNA Structure and Function
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Article Title: Locus Control Regions (LCRs)
 
How to Cite close
Bulger, Michael, and Groudine, Mark(Sep 2005) Locus Control Regions (LCRs). In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0005034]