The effect of transcription on enhancer activity in Drosophila melanogaster

In higher eukaryotes, the level of gene transcription is under the control of DNA regulatory elements, such as promoter, from which transcription is initiated with the participation of RNA polymerase II and general transcription factors, as well as the enhancer, which increase the rate of transcription with the involvement of activator proteins and cofactors. It was demonstrated that enhancers are often located in the transcribed regions of the genome. We showed earlier that transcription negatively affected the activity of enhancers in Drosophila in model transgenic systems. In this study, we tested the effect of the distance between the leading promoter, enhancer, and target promoter on the inhibitory effect of transcription of different strength. It was demonstrated that the negative effect of transcription remained, but weakened with increased distance between the leading promoter and enhancer and with decreased distance between the enhancer and target promoter. Thus, transcription can modulate the activity of enhancers by controlling its maximum level.