China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine ›› 2021, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (10): 3715-3725.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2021.10.023

• Genetics and Breeding • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research Advances on OCT4 in Mammalian Early Embryonic Development

QI Zicheng, LIU Zhonghua   

  1. College of Life Science, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China
  • Received:2021-02-03 Online:2021-10-20 Published:2021-09-30

Abstract: Octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (OCT4) is a POU-family transcription factor, which is specifically expressed in early embryos, embryonic stem cells and germ cells. Since both embryonic stem cells and germ cells come from early embryos, especially inner cell mass (ICM) cells, OCT4 as a core development factor is involved in coordinating the maintenance of early embryo pluripotency and the formation of ICM. The exclusively expression of OCT4 and caudal type homeobox transcription factor 2 (CDX2) in mouse embryonic cells is crucial for ICM and trophectoderm (TE) differentiation and results in OCT4 specially expressed in ICM and CDX2 specially expressed in TE. However, in other large mammals represented by pigs, OCT4 continues to be expressed in blastocyst TE, indicating that OCT4 is highly conserved and has a certain species specificity. Researching the expression and regulation mechanism of OCT4 in early embryonic development of mammals is significant for us to understand the pluripotency and maintenance of embryonic stem cells. This review summarized the expression rules and expression regulation mechanism of OCT4 in mammalian early embryonic development, hoping to provide a reference for in-depth comprehending of mammalian early embryonic development regulation.

Key words: OCT4; early embryonic development; mammal; species specificity

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