title: Identification of a homologue of POU5F1 (OCT3/4) in a marsupial, the brushtail possum.
abstract: Several morphological features of early development differ between marsupials and eutherians. These include early overt conceptus polarity, the mode of segregation of pluriblast and trophoblast lineages, and the superficial position of the pluriblast within the unilaminar blastocyst epithelium. Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of early development is lacking in marsupials. We have cloned from the brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, the partial cDNA of a marsupial homologue of mammalian POU5F1, which encodes octamer-binding transcription factor-4 (Oct-4). The 579 bp cloned coding sequence of possum POU5F1 (tvPOU5F1) shares 74, 78, and 79% identity with murine Pou5f1, human POU5F1, and bovine bPOU5F1, respectively, at the protein level. The mRNA for tvPOU5F1 was detected by in situ hybridization in oogonia and in oocytes of growing follicles, but not in early meiotic oocytes. In a gastrulation-stage conceptus, high tvPOU5F1 expression was found in the embryonic ectoderm, with low or undetectable expression in other cell types. These results are comparable with those of murine and bovine expression studies, and suggest that the putative role of POU5F1 in totipotent and pluripotent cells is conserved among mammals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Frankenberg
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tisdall
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Selwood
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002417:Cattle; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006066:Gonads / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D008297:Male; D008394:Marsupialia / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3; D009865:Oocytes / Q000502:physiology; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3; C494173:POU5F1 protein, human; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014157:Transcription Factors