Research Article Identification of Klf6-Related Super Enhancer in Human Hepatoma (HepG2) Cells by CRISPR Technique

Abstract

The Klf6 gene is a tumor suppressor gene belonging to the family of the Klf gene and closely associated with tumor formation. Recently, super enhancers(SEs) have been shown to play a particularly important role in regulating cell identity and are attempting to evaluate the in vivo function of SEs. But direct functional evidence of SE associated with Klf6 is lacking. Using genomic editing technology, we have attempted to identify super enhancer associated with the expression of Klf6 and clarify its function in human hepatoma (HepG2) cells. As a result, it identified the Klf6 related SE and demonstrated that the Klf6related SE is responsible for more than 80% of Klf6 gene expression. It also revealed the hierarchical structure of the Klf-6 related SE and the function of individual enhancers. Our results provide the functional significance of the super enhancer in understanding the transcriptional regulation mechanism of Klf6.