NEW YORK, Feb. 5 U.S. cancer researchers say they have made a breakthrough in identifying functional elements in the human genome.The scientists from the New York-based Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of California-San Diego say while DNA sequencing can identify genes within the genome, it cannot answer the more fundamental questions of how, when and where gene products are expressed.However, the researchers said they have developed a novel method to identify and predict the promoter and enhancer regions that switch on transcription, the first step in gene expression. Their achievement, they say, is an important step towards large-scale functional annotation of enhancers, which establish the rate at which gene expression occurs and determine the tissues in which genes are expressed. The study is reported online in the journal Nature Genetics.Copyright 2007 by UPI
