Description
Clonality: Monoclonal
Host: Rat
Purification: IgG
Reactivity: Mouse
Transcription factors (TFs) directly interpret the genome, performing the first step in decoding the DNA sequence. Many function as ‘‘master regulators’’ and ‘‘selector genes’’, exerting control over processes that specify cell types and developmental patterning (Lee and Young, 2013) and controlling specific pathways such as immune responses (Singh et al., 2014). In the laboratory, TFs can drive cell differentiation (Fong and Tapscott, 2013) and even de-differentiation and trans-differentiation (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2016). Mutations in TFs and TF-binding sites underlie many human diseases. Their protein sequences, regulatory regions, and physiological roles are often deeply conserved among metazoans (Bejerano et al., 2004; Carroll, 2008), suggesting that global gene regulatory ‘‘networks’’ may be similarly conserved. And yet, there is high turnover in individual regulatory sequences (Weirauch and Hughes, 2010), and over longer timescales, TFs duplicate and diverge. The same TF can regulate different genes in different cell types (e.g., ESR1 in breast and endometrial cell lines [Gertz et al., 2012]), indicating that regulatory networks are dynamic even within the same organism. Determining how TFs are assembled in different ways to recognize binding sites and control transcription is daunting yet paramount to under-standing their physiological roles, decoding specific functional properties of genomes, and mapping how highly specific expression programs are orchestrated in complex organisms. [from: Lambert SA, Jolma A, Campitelli LF, Das PK, Yin Y. (2018) The Human Transcription Factors. Cell. 172:650-665.]
Oct4/Pou5f1 is a member of POU transcription factor family, which possess POU domain. This transcription factor forms a trimeric complex with SOX2 on DNA and controls the expression of a number of genes involved in embryonic development such as YES1, FGF4, UTF1 and ZFP206. Oct4/Pou5f1 is critical for early embryogenesis and for embryonic stem cell pluripotency.
References:
1) Sterneckert, J. et al. (2012) Oct4 and More: The Reprogramming Expressway. Stem Cells. 30(1):15-21.
