Department of Surgical Pathology, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba-city, Chiba 230-8670, Japan
POU3F2, also known as BRN2, Oct7, and N-Oct3, is a member of the neural cell-specific class III POU domain transcription factors (Ryan and Rosenfeld, 1997). POU3F2-knockout causes the loss of specific neuronal lineages in the endocrine hypothalamus and the subsequent loss of the posterior pituitary gland (Nakai et al., 1995; Schonemann et al., 1995; Alvarez-Bolado et al., 1995). And also, transgenes of POU3F2 and some other few factors converted non-neural cells to neural cells in vitro (Ambasudhan et al., 2011; Lujan et al., 2012; Pang et al., 2011). These results indicate that POU3F2 is an indispensable transcription factor for neural differentiation and generation of normal nervous system, especially hypothalamus. There have been a few reports regarding the functions of POU3F2 in association with tumorigenesis. POU3F2 has been demonstrated to be an oncogene in malignant melanomas derived from the neuroectodermal cell lineage and to accelerate the growth of melanoma cells (Cook and Sturm, 2008). POU3F2 are also highly expressed in small cell lung cancers and closely associated with the cancer specific neural\/neuroendocrine phenotype (Schreiber et al., 1992; Ishii et al., 2013; Sakaeda et al., 2013).
NCBI: 5454 MIM: 600494 HGNC: 9215 Ensembl: ENSG00000184486
dbSNP: 5454 ClinVar: 5454 TCGA: ENSG00000184486 COSMIC: POU3F2
Takuya Yazawa
POU3F2 (POU class 3 homeobox 2)
Atlas Genet Cytogenet Oncol Haematol. 2014-04-01
Online version: http://atlasgeneticsoncology.org/gene/45747
