Octamania: the POU factors in murine development.

Much effort has been directed towards the investigation of regulatory processes in the early mouse embryo. Several multigene families of developmental control genes have been identified. The POU family is a group of related transcription factors containing a particular type of bipartite DNA-binding domain. Members of this family show distinct expression patterns during embryonic development. Two members, Oct-4 and Oct-6, are expressed as early as in the preimplantation embryo and thus may regulate early events of murine development.