This region encompasses the proximal promoter and upstream regulatory elements of the POU class 5 homeobox 1 (POU5F1, commonly known as OCT3 or OCT4) gene. It includes several regions that are highly conserved with the corresponding mouse region and may have similar activity. This promoter is induced by signalling through estrogen receptor and downregulated by aryl hydrocarbon. Activity of this sequence is regulated by binding of nuclear receptor family member proteins, including Nr5a1/Sf1 and Nr5a2/Lrh1, as well as ETS domain-containing transcription factors. This region is epigenetically silenced by DNA methylation during differentiation. Four subregions were also shown to be active enhancers by ChIP-STARR-seq in human embryonic stem cells, where all subregions are associated with the OCT4 transcription factor and are marked by the H3K27ac and H3K4me1 histone modifications, and three of them are additionally associated with NANOG. [provided by RefSeq, Oct 2022]
