- Crump, Nicholas;
- Smith, Alastair;
- Godfrey, Laura;
- Dopico-Fernandez, Ana;
- Denny, Nicholas;
- Harman, Joe;
- Hamley, Joseph;
- Jackson, Nicole;
- Chahrour, Catherine;
- Riva, Simone;
- Rice, Siobhan;
- Kim, Jaehoon;
- Basrur, Venkatesha;
- Fermin, Damian;
- Elenitoba-Johnson, Kojo;
- Roeder, Robert;
- Allis, C;
- Roberts, Irene;
- Roy, Anindita;
- Geng, Huimin;
- Davies, James;
- Milne, Thomas
Aberrant enhancer activation is a key mechanism driving oncogene expression in many cancers. While much is known about the regulation of larger chromosome domains in eukaryotes, the details of enhancer-promoter interactions remain poorly understood. Recent work suggests co-activators like BRD4 and Mediator have little impact on enhancer-promoter interactions. In leukemias controlled by the MLL-AF4 fusion protein, we use the ultra-high resolution technique Micro-Capture-C (MCC) to show that MLL-AF4 binding promotes broad, high-density regions of enhancer-promoter interactions at a subset of key targets. These enhancers are enriched for transcription elongation factors like PAF1C and FACT, and the loss of these factors abolishes enhancer-promoter contact. This work not only provides an additional model for how MLL-AF4 is able to drive high levels of transcription at key genes in leukemia but also suggests a more general model linking enhancer-promoter crosstalk and transcription elongation.