Transcriptional super-enhancers connected to cell identity and disease

Super-enhancers are large clusters of transcriptional enhancers that drive expression of genes that control and define cell identity. Improved understanding of the roles super-enhancers play in biology would be afforded by knowing the constellation of factors that constitute these domains and by identifying super-enhancers across the spectrum of human cell types. We describe here the population of transcription factors, cofactors, chromatin regulators and core transcription apparatus that occupy super-enhancers in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and evidence that super-enhancers are highly transcribed. We then use epigenomic data to produce a catalogue of super-enhancers in a broad range of human cell types. These super-enhancer domains are associated with genes encoding master transcription factors and other components that play important roles in the biology of these cells. Interestingly, sequence variation associated with a broad spectrum of diseases is especially enriched in the super-enhancers of disease-relevant cell types. Furthermore, we find that cancer cells generate super-enhancers at oncogenes and other genes that play important roles in tumor pathogenesis. We discuss these insights and their implications for future study of human health and disease.