An Unprecedented View of Gene Regulation

MIT engineers have created a new technique that analyzes the 3D organization of the genome at a resolution 100 times higher than before. The findings suggest that many genes interact with dozens of different regulatory elements, although further study is needed to determine which of those interactions are the most important to the regulation of a given gene. Watch this video to learn more about this never-before-seen view.

“Using this method, we generate the highest-resolution maps of the 3D genome that have ever been generated, and what we see are a lot of interactions between enhancers and promoters that haven't been seen previously,” says Anders Sejr Hansen , the Underwood-Prescott Career Development Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.