PAX4 antibody

Background of PAX4 antibody

Pax proteins are a family of transcription factors with a highly conserved paired domain; many members also contain a paired-type homeodomain and/or an octapeptide. Nine mammalian PAX genes are known and classified into four subgroups: Pax-1/9, Pax-2/5/8, Pax-3/7, and Pax-4/6. Most of these genes are involved in nervous system development. The homeo box, which encodes the DNA-binding homeo domain, is a DNA binding sequence motif present in several Drosophila melanogaster developmental genes; it has been used to identify many homologous genes involved in mammalian development. The paired box is another conserved sequence motif, first identified in the paired (prd) and gooseberry (gsb) Drosophila homeo domain genes. The amino-terminal region of the paired domain, including one of the three predicted alpha-helices, is necessary and sufficient for binding. Single amino acid substitution mutation in PAX1 causes formation of the mouse skeletal mutant undulated (un) mutant (1).
PAX4 and PAX6 are highly related and belong to a PAX family of transcription factor that contain both a paired domain and a homeodomain which are potential DNA biding domains. The PAX4 and PAX6 mRNA is expressed at murine embryonic age e9.5 in ventral spinal chord and pancreas. age is expressed in the Pax-4 is necessary for normal development of Pancreas, PAX4 is identified as only regulator of endocrine development of pancreas and its targets genes are not known (2). PAX4 heterozygotes containing a single mutated PAX4 gene are normal however, double null mutant of PAX4 and PAX6 fail to produce any mature pancreatic endocrine cells, suggesting the PAX4 and PAX6 together are required for pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation (2). PAX4 and PAX 6 bind to various sequences in the rat insulin I, somatostatin and glucagons promoters and acts as repressor for gene expression. The homeodoamin and the carboxy portion of the PAX4 molecule confers the majority of the repressive activity. PAX4 expression peaks early in the pancreatic development and it is not expressed in mature islets cells (2).