title: Evolutionary and functional analysis of the key pluripotency factor Oct4 and its family proteins.
abstract: Oct4 is one of the key pluripotent factors essential for embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Oct4 belongs to the POU domain family, which contains multiples genes with various important functions. Although the function of Oct4 has been extensively studied, detailed comparison of Oct4 with other POU family genes and their evolutionary analysis are still lacking. Here, we systematically identified POU family genes from lower to higher animal species. We observed an expansion of POU family genes in vertebrates, with an additional increment in mammalian genomes. We analyzed the phylogenetic relationship, tissue specific expression profiles and regulatory networks of POU family genes of the human genome, and predicted the putative binding microRNAs of human POU family genes. These results provide the first comprehensive evolutionary and comparative analysis of POU family genes, which will help to better understand the relationships among POU family genes and shed light on their future functional studies.
authors: Computer & Information Engineering College, Inner Mongolia Normal University, Inner Mongolia, Hohhot 010022, China.
authors: Xinmin
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: Yuzhen
authors: Y
authors: Ma
authors: Xiuying
authors: X
authors: Liu
authors: Qi
authors: Q
authors: Zhou
authors: Xiu-Jie
authors: XJ
authors: Wang
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D039904:Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D050814:Octamer Transcription Factor-3
keywords: Evolutionary analysis; Induced pluripotent stem cell; MicroRNA; Oct4; POU family