FIGURE 2.

Layers of overlapping functional elements in cis‐regulatory loci. Cis‐acting lncRNA‐producing loci may act through one or more tightly coupled mechanisms. DNA elements such as promoters, enhancers, and CTCF binding sites may bind transcription factors that directly regulate local gene expression (Alexanian et al., 2017; Paralkar et al., 2016). Alternatively, the transcriptional process, including associated phenomena such as splicing, may enact cis‐regulation through transcriptional interference or by modulating the local transcriptional and epigenetic landscape (Allou et al., 2021; Engreitz et al., 2016; Latos et al., 2012). Finally, sequence and structural features of the lncRNA itself may enable it to interact with proteins that activate or repress local gene expression (Pandey et al., 2008; Pandya‐Jones et al., 2020)