Accelerated evolution of regulatory sequence can alter the expression pattern of target
genes, and cause phenotypic changes. In this study, we used DNase I hypersensitive sites …

It has long been hypothesized that changes in gene regulation have played an important
role in human evolution, but regulatory DNA has been much more difficult to study compared …

To identify the evolutionary genetic novelties that contributed to shape human-specific traits
such as the use of a complex language, long-term planning and exceptional learning …

Some of the fastest evolving regions of the human genome are conserved noncoding
elements with many human-specific DNA substitutions. These human accelerated regions …

Human accelerated regions (HARs) are the fastest-evolving sequences in the human
genome. When HARs were discovered in 2006, their function was mysterious due to scant …

What made us human? Gene expression changes clearly played a significant part in human
evolution, but pinpointing the causal regulatory mutations is hard. Comparative genomics …

Empirical assessments of human accelerated noncoding DNA frgaments have delineated
presence of many cis-regulatory elements. Enhancers make up an important category of …

How mutations in gene regulatory elements lead to evolutionary changes remains largely
unknown. Human accelerated regions (HARs) are ideal for exploring this question, because …

Highlights•Evolutionary insights are helpful in various medical fields.•HARs are significantly
enriched with neurological disorder-associated genes.•Approved drugs target nearly twice …

Recent advances in epigenomics have made it possible to map genome-wide regulatory
regions using empirical methods. Subsequent comparative epigenomic studies have …