Abstract
BackgroundYY1 is an epigenetic regulator for a large number of mammalian genes. While performing genome-wide YY1 binding motif searches, we discovered that the olfactory receptor (OLFR) genes have an unusual cluster of YY1 binding sites within their coding regions. The statistical significance of this observation was further analyzed.ResultsAbout 45% of the olfactory genes in the mouse have a range of 4-8 YY1 binding sites within their respective 1 kb coding regions. Statistical analyses indicate that this enrichment of YY1 motifs has likely been driven by unknown selection pressures at the DNA level, but not serendipitously by some peptides enriched within the OLFR genes. Similar patterns are also detected in the OLFR genes of all mammals analyzed, but not in the OLFR genes of the fish lineage, suggesting a mammal-specific phenomenon.ConclusionYY1, or YY1-related transcription factors, may help regulate olfactory receptor genes. Furthermore, the protein-coding regions of vertebrate genes can contain cis-regulatory elements for transcription factor binding as well as codons.
Highlights
Yin-Yang 1 (YY1) is an epigenetic regulator for a large number of mammalian genes
YY1 DNA-binding motifs in the mammalian olfactory receptor (OLFR) genes YY1 is predicted to be a global epigenetic regulator based on its ubiquitous expression and interaction with many histone-modifying enzymes [4]
While inspecting global localization patterns of YY1 binding motifs in each genome, we noticed that clusters of YY1 binding motifs are co-localized with the genomic regions harboring olfactory receptor (OLFR) genes
Summary
YY1 is an epigenetic regulator for a large number of mammalian genes. While performing genome-wide YY1 binding motif searches, we discovered that the olfactory receptor (OLFR) genes have an unusual cluster of YY1 binding sites within their coding regions. According to genome-wide surveys, about 10% of all human genes contain YY1 binding motifs in their promoter regions [6]. YY1 was initially identified as a factor controlling the transcriptional activity of the murine retrotransposon 'Intracisternal A Particle' [8]. Many retroposons, including SINE, LINE, and endogenous retrovirus families, have been shown to contain YY1 binding sites in their promoter regions [3,4]. Due to this ubiquitous presence of YY1 binding sites in genome-wide repeats, YY1 has been regarded as a surveillance gene that is responsible for repressing transcriptional background noise from these repeats [9]
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