The identification of the enhancers associated with each developmentally regulated gene is a first step to clarify the regulatory mechanisms underlying embryogenesis. The electroporation technique using chicken embryo is a powerful tool to identify such enhancers. The technique enables us to survey a large genomic region and to analyze the enhancers in great detail. Comparison of the genomic sequences of the chicken and other vertebrate species identifies conserved non-coding sequence blocks to which the functionally identified enhancers often correspond. In this review, I describe in detail the methods to analyze the enhancers using the chicken embryo electroporation and genome comparison.
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