POU family

POU (pronounced 'pow') is a family of proteins that have well-conserved homeodomains.cite journal | author = Phillips K, Luisi B | title = The virtuoso of versatility: POU proteins that flex to fit | journal = J. Mol. Biol. | volume = 302 | issue = 5 | pages = 1023–39 | year = 2000 | pmid = 11183772 | doi = 10.1006/jmbi.2000.4107 ]

Function

POU proteins are eukaryotic transcription factors containing a bipartite DNA binding domain referred to as the POU domain.

The various members of the POU family have a wide variety of functions, all of which are related to the development of an organism.

Etymology

The acronym POU is derived from the names of three mammalian transcription factors:
* the Pituitary-specific Pit-1
* the Octamer transcription factor proteins Oct-1 and Oct-2 (octamer sequence is ATGCAAAT)
* the neural Unc-86 transcription factor from Caenorhabditis elegans.

Diversity

POU domain genes have been described in organisms as divergent as Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila, Xenopus, zebrafish and human but have not been yet identified in plants and fungi.

D'Souza et al (PNAS, 91:9397-9401. 1994) demonstrated a surprisingly high degree of amino acid sequence conservation (37%-42%) of POU homeodomains to the transcriptional regulator comS from the gram positive prokaryote Bacillus subtilis. Interestingly, akin to the way that POU homeodomain regulators lead to tissue differentiation in metazoans, this transcription factor is critical for differentation of a subpopulation of B. subtilis into a state of genetic competence.

Genes

*
*, Gene|POU2F2, Gene|POU2F3
*, Gene|POU3F2, Gene|POU3F3, Gene|POU3F4
*, Gene|POU4F2, Gene|POU4F3
*
*, Gene|POU6F2

References

External links

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