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Role of SoxB1 transcription factors in development

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Abstract

SoxB1 factors, which include Sox1, 2, and 3, share more than 90% amino acid identity in their DNA binding HMG box and participate in diverse developmental events. They are known to exert cell-type-specific functions in concert with other transcription factors on Sox factor-dependent regulatory enhancers. Due to the high degree of sequence similarity both within and outside the HMG box, SoxB1 members show almost identical biological activities. As a result, they exhibit strong functional redundancy in regions where SoxB1 members are coexpressed, such as neural stem/progenitor cells in the developing central nervous system.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the members of Okuda’s laboratory for many stimulating discussions. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, Science and Technology for our previous work on the expression and function of Sox2 in mouse ES cells and neural stem/progenitor cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

    Satoru Miyagi

  2. Division of Developmental Biology, Research Center for Genomic Medicine, Saitama Medical University, 1397-1 Yamane, Hidaka, Saitama, 350-1241, Japan

    Hidemasa Kato & Akihiko Okuda

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  1. Satoru Miyagi
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Correspondence to Akihiko Okuda.

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Miyagi, S., Kato, H. & Okuda, A. Role of SoxB1 transcription factors in development. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 66, 3675–3684 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0097-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-009-0097-0

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