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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Loss- and Gain-of-function Approach to Investigate Early Cell Fate Determinants in Preimplantation Mouse Embryos
Published on: June 6, 2016
Dynamic changes in Sox2 spatio-temporal expression promote the second cell fate decision through Fgf4/Fgfr2 signaling
Tapan Kumar Mistri1,2,3,4, Wibowo Arindrarto3, Wei Ping Ng2,3
1School of Chemical Engineering and Physical Sciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab 144411, India.
Abstract:
Oct4 and Sox2 regulate the expression of target genes such as Nanog, Fgf4, and Utf1, by binding to their respective regulatory motifs. Their functional cooperation is reflected in their ability to heterodimerize on adjacent cis regulatory motifs, the composite Sox/Oct motif. Given that Oct4 and Sox2 regulate many developmental genes, a quantitative analysis of their synergistic action on different Sox/Oct motifs would yield valuable insights into the mechanisms of early embryonic development. In the present study, we measured binding affinities of Oct4 and Sox2 to different Sox/Oct motifs using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. We found that the synergistic binding interaction is driven mainly by the level of Sox2 in the case of the Fgf4 Sox/Oct motif. Taking into account Sox2 expression levels fluctuate more than Oct4, our finding provides an explanation on how Sox2 controls the segregation of the epiblast and primitive endoderm populations within the inner cell mass of the developing rodent blastocyst.
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