Cysteine 50 of the POU H domain determines the range of targets recognized by POU proteins.

The best target of POU proteins (Oct-1, Oct-2) is an octamer sequence ATGCAAAT. POU proteins also recognize, with weaker affinity, the TAAT-like targets of another group of regulatory factors, the homeoproteins. Up to now, it has not been known why Cys50 of the POUHdomain is absolutely conserved in contrast to that in homeoproteins. To assess the importance of Cys50 in determining the binding specificity of POU proteins, all possible amino acids were substituted for Cys at position 50, and the resulting mutants were tested with probes containing octamer (ATGCAAATNN) or homeospecific binding sites. Only the wild-type POU was shown to adequately discriminate between the octamer and homeospecific sites, and the protein affinity was only slightly affected by the nucleotide sequence flanking the octamer at the 3'-end. Any amino acid substitution at position 50 resulted in the mutant protein binding efficiently both to the octamer and the TAAT-like sequences. Moreover, in this case the 3'-flanking sequences influenced the binding to a much greater extent.