The transcription of human genes is controlled by the binding of transcription factors to cis-elements in the DNA sequence. While computational methods to detect individual cis-elements have met with little success, cis-elements typically cluster into higher order regulatory modules known variously as enhancers, silencers, and promoters. I will discuss a number of statistical approaches to detect such clusters of individually weak but collectively strong signals.
This is joint work with John L. Spouge, Ulla Hansen and Zhiping Weng.