‘Mysterious’ non-protein-coding RNAs play important roles in gene expression

Enhancers boost the rate of gene expression from nearby protein-coding genes so a cell can pump out more of a needed protein molecule. A mysterious subset of non-coding RNAs — enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) are transcribed from enhancer sequences. Shedding new light on these elusive eRNAs, researchers showed that CBP, an enzyme that activates transcription from enhancers, binds directly to eRNAs to control patterns of gene expression by acetylation.