Genome-wide distribution of CDK7 in human cutaneous melanoma

CDK7 is a cycline-dependent kinase part of the basal transcription factor TFIIH involved in the formation of the pre-inithiation complex of RNApol II dependent-genes. Despite it's well known genomic localization at the level of gene's promoter, it has been recently observed from Kwiatkowski et al., (2014) that CDK7 can be found also in large clusters of gene regulatory elements called Super-enhancers (SEs) of both normal and cancer cells. Here we report that CDK7 is resembling such distribution in a human melanoma context, in particular at the level of genes important in melanoma physiology such as the master transcription factors MITF and SOX10 which indeed, following the inhibition of CDK7 with the molecule THZ1, are rapidly downregulated at very low nanomolar concentration. Overall design: Chromatin immunoprecipitation of human CDK7