## Description

This track displays Stable Transfection data for the NHGRI ENCODE target regions. This is a form of transfection experiment designed to produce permanent lines of cultured cells with a new gene inserted into their genome. Nucleic acids are introduced into mammalian cells in manner that allows the test fragment to either integrate into the chromosomal DNA or be maintained as an episomal segment. Usually this is done by linking the desired gene with a "selectable" gene, i.e. a gene which confers resistance to a toxin (like G418, aka Geneticin). Upon putting the toxin into the culture medium, only those cells which incorporate the resistance gene will survive, and essentially all of those will also have incorporated the "test" sequence.

The long-term goal of the NHGRI ENCODE Project (ENCyclopedia of DNA Elements) is to identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence to facilitate a better understanding of human biology and disease.

During the pilot phase, 44 regions comprising 30 Mb -- approximately 1% of the human genome -- have been selected for intensive study to identify, locate and analyze functional elements within the regions. These targets are being studied by a diverse public research consortium to test and evaluate the efficacy of various methods, technologies, and strategies for locating genomic features. The outcome of this initial phase will form the basis for a larger-scale effort to analyze the entire human genome.

The ENCODE Project: Target Selection Process provides a description of how the initial target regions were selected.

To open a UCSC Genome Browser with a menu for selecting ENCODE regions, use ENCODE Regions in the UCSC Browser .

## Credits

Thanks to Laura Elnitski, Ross Hardison, and Webb Miller at Penn State and the NHGRI ENCODE project for providing this initial set of data.