Gene expression in higher eukaryotes is precisely regulated in time and space through the interplay between promoters and gene-distal regulatory regions, known as enhancers. The original definition of enhancers implies the ability to activate gene expression remotely, while promoters entail the capability to locally induce gene expression. Despite the conventional distinction between them, promoters and enhancers share many genomic and epigenomic features. One intriguing finding in the gene regulation field comes from the observation that many core promoter regions display enhancer activity. Recent high-throughput reporter assays along with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9-related approaches have indicated that this phenomenon is common and might have a strong impact on our global understanding of genome organisation and gene expression regulation.

通过启动子和基因远端调控区（称为增强子）之间的相互作用，可以在时间和空间上精确调控高等真核生物中的基因表达。增强子的原始定义暗示了远程激活基因表达的能力，而启动子则具有局部诱导基因表达的能力。尽管它们之间有常规区别，启动子和增强子具有许多基因组和表观基因组特征。在基因调控领域的一项有趣发现来自观察到许多核心启动子区域均显示出增强子活性。