[Investigation of transcriptional regulation of Oct4 (POU5F1) gene with distal enhancer].

Investigations of transcriptional regulation of Oct4 gene in mouse embryonic stem cells have revealed an important cis-element--the distal enhancer (DE). DE consists of two functionally significant elements--DEa and DEb. Both elements are necessary to complete the DE-mediated expression of Oct4 gene in pluripotent cells. The most likely candidates for the binding site DEb are Oct4 itself in complex with Sox2 protein. It remains unclear which transcriptional proteins bind to the DEa site and what is the mechanism of the co-operation between the DEa and the DEb. Through the use of using the EMSA and chromatographic fractionation of proteins from extracts of mouse embryonic stem cells and mouse tissues, were isolated proteins specifically interacting with the sequence DEa Oct4 gene.