Transcription and Enhancers

Transcription and Enhancers Animation

Like bacteria, eukaryotes use gene regulatory proteins (activates and repressors) to regulate the expression of their genes but in somewhat different way. The DNA sites to witch the eukaryote gene activates bound were originally termed enhancers, since their presence “enhanced”, or increased, the rate of transcription dramatically. It came as a surprise when, in 1979, in was discovered that those activator proteins could be bound thousands of nucleotide pairs away from promoter.