SOX2
Transcription factor SOX-2
Also known as: SOX2_HUMAN
Cross-references: UniProt · Ensembl · Human Protein Atlas · GeneCards · NCBI Gene
Protein identityUniProt · HPA
- UniProt accession
- P48431
- Gene
- SOX2
- Ensembl
- ENSG00000181449
- Chromosome
- 3
- Canonical length
- 317 aa
- Protein class
- Cancer-related genes, Disease related genes, Human disease related genes, Predicted intracellular proteins, Transcription factors
- Subcellular location
- Nucleoplasm
OverviewNCBI Gene
This intronless gene encodes a member of the SRY-related HMG-box (SOX) family of transcription factors involved in the regulation of embryonic development and in the determination of cell fate. The product of this gene is required for stem-cell maintenance in the central nervous system, and also regulates gene expression in the stomach. Mutations in this gene have been associated with optic nerve hypoplasia and with syndromic microphthalmia, a severe form of structural eye malformation. This gene lies within an intron of another gene called SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT). [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]
Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt
317 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.
>P48431|SOX2
1 MYNMMETELK PPGPQQTSGG GGGNSTAAAA GGNQKNSPDR VKRPMNAFMV WSRGQRRKMA
61 QENPKMHNSE ISKRLGAEWK LLSETEKRPF IDEAKRLRAL HMKEHPDYKY RPRRKTKTLM
121 KKDKYTLPGG LLAPGGNSMA SGVGVGAGLG AGVNQRMDSY AHMNGWSNGS YSMMQDQLGY
181 PQHPGLNAHG AAQMQPMHRY DVSALQYNSM TSSQTYMNGS PTYSMSYSQQ GTPGMALGSM
241 GSVVKSEASS SPPVVTSSSH SRAPCQAGDL RDMISMYLPG AEVPEPAAPS RLHMSQHYQS
301 GPVPGTAING TLPLSHMLocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA
Whether an antibody against SOX2 can act on the native protein depends on physical access: surface and secreted proteins are reachable by circulating antibodies, intracellular proteins usually are not.
- Antibody reachability
- Intracellular
- Secreted
- No
- Transmembrane segments
- 0
- Mean surface accessibility (rSASA)
- 0.64
- Highest tissue expression
- 72 nTPM
Expression across tissuesHPA
Tissue
- amygdala: 72 nTPM
- basal ganglia: 64 nTPM
- cerebral cortex: 64 nTPM
- midbrain: 51 nTPM
- hippocampal formation: 48 nTPM
- hypothalamus: 46 nTPM
Single-cell type
- podocytes: 4.1 nCPM
- schwann cells: 2.8 nCPM
- astrocytes: 2.1 nCPM
- bergmann glia: 1.6 nCPM
- gastric chief cells: 1.1 nCPM
- respiratory deuterosomal cells: 1 nCPM
Immune cell
- basophil: 0 nTPM
- classical monocyte: 0 nTPM
- eosinophil: 0 nTPM
- gdT-cell: 0 nTPM
- intermediate monocyte: 0 nTPM
- MAIT T-cell: 0 nTPM
Brain region
- hypothalamus: 139 nTPM
- spinal cord: 138 nTPM
- midbrain: 138 nTPM
- thalamus: 137 nTPM
- white matter: 136 nTPM
- amygdala: 134 nTPM
DiseaseUniProt · ClinVar · IEDB · PubMed
Four sources answering four different questions about SOX2.
Disease | AllUniProt
Conditions SOX2 is implicated in, by any mechanism.
- Microphthalmia, syndromic, 3 (MCOPS3) MIM:206900
Disease | GeneticClinVar
101 pathogenic / likely-pathogenic of 276 ClinVar records.
Conditions with pathogenic or likely-pathogenic variants.
- Anophthalmia/microphthalmia-esophageal atresia syndrome
- Inborn genetic diseases
- SOX2-related disorder
- Anophthalmia
- Septo-optic dysplasia sequence
Disease | ImmuneIEDB
Conditions an epitope on SOX2 was assayed in.
- glioblastoma B cell
- prostate cancer B cell
- lung cancer B cell
- prostate adenocarcinoma B cell
Disease | AutoantibodyPubMed
Conditions in which antibodies against SOX2 are reported. Each links to that disease's full target list.
ReferencesPubMed · IEDB
Publications for SOX2 from three distinct lines of evidence, kept separate because they answer different questions: whether antibodies are directed at the protein, whether a B-cell epitope has been mapped on it, and whether a T-cell epitope has. Each is labelled with its source.
Reference: AutoantibodyPubMed
7 publications
- Autoimmunity to SOX2, clinical phenotype and survival in patients with small-cell lung cancer.
2010 · Lung Cancer · RCR 0.9 · 37 citations - SOX2 autoantibodies as noninvasive serum biomarker for breast carcinoma.
2012 · Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev · RCR 0.6 · 18 citations - The utility of anti-SOX2 antibodies for cancer prediction in patients with paraneoplastic neurological disorders.
2019 · J Neuroimmunol · RCR 0.4 · 8 citations - An analysis of the influencing factors of false negative autoantibodies in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
2024 · Front Oncol · RCR 0.2 · 2 citations - Patients with multiple myeloma develop SOX2-specific autoantibodies after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.
2011 · Clin Dev Immunol · RCR 0.2 · 10 citations
Show 2 more
- [The expression and significance of stem cell transcription factor Sox2 in lung carcinoma].
2013 · Zhongguo Fei Ai Za Zhi · RCR 0.1 · 3 citations - Assessment of background levels of autoantibodies as a prognostic marker for severe SARS-CoV-2 infection.
2022 · J Circ Biomark
Reference: B cellIEDB
2 publications
- Cellular immunotherapy study of prostate cancer patients and resulting IgG responses to peptide epitopes predicted from prostate tumor-associated autoantigens.
2013 · J Immunother · RCR 0.2 · 8 citations - Dominant B-cell epitopes from cancer/stem cell antigen SOX2 recognized by serum samples from cancer patients.
2014 · Am J Clin Exp Immunol · RCR 0.1 · 4 citations
Reference: T cellIEDB
1 publication
- Identification and Validation of Th1-Selective Epitopes Derived from Proteins Overexpressed in Breast Cancer Stem Cells.
2025 · Vaccines (Basel) · 2 citations
Sources: PubMed — antigen-level antibody evidence from a custom retrieval. Records matching a controlled set of autoantibody terms (the MeSH descriptors Autoantibodies and Autoantigens, with title and abstract term variants) were obtained through NCBI E-utilities, and their titles and abstracts parsed for constructions that direct an antibody at a named protein rather than for co-occurrence. Captured names were resolved against UniProt nomenclature and each antigen adjudicated individually against the source text. IEDB — curated epitope assays from the Immune Epitope Database (Vita et al., Nucleic Acids Research 2019). Bibliographic records from PubMed and MeSH, U.S. National Library of Medicine; citation metrics from NIH iCite (Hutchins et al., PLoS Biology 2016). Titles link to PubMed; abstracts are not reproduced here. The NLM does not endorse this analysis.
Genetic constraint and essentialitygnomAD · DepMap
Does the body need this protein intact? Low LOEUF or a strong DepMap dependency means loss or blockade of the protein is likely to be felt.
- gnomAD LOEUF (loss-of-function intolerance)
- 0.57
- gnomAD pLI
- 0.71
- gnomAD missense Z
- 2.12
- DepMap mean gene effect
- -0.08
- DepMap dependency class
- selective
Cancer expressionTCGA
Across TCGA tumor cohorts, this protein is over-expressed in roughly 9% of surveyed tumor types (aggregate summary; per-cohort expression, alteration, and survival load in the interactive view).
OntologyGO
Biological processes
- adenohypophysis development
- brain development
- cellular response to hypoxia
- chromatin organization
- endodermal cell fate specification
- eye development
- forebrain development
- glial cell fate commitment
- inner ear development
- negative regulation of canonical Wnt signaling pathway
- negative regulation of cell cycle G1/S phase transition
- negative regulation of neuron differentiation
- negative regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
- neuron differentiation
- neuronal stem cell population maintenance
- osteoblast differentiation
- pituitary gland development
- positive regulation of cell differentiation
- positive regulation of cell-cell adhesion
- positive regulation of DNA-templated transcription
- positive regulation of MAPK cascade
- positive regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
- regulation of DNA-templated transcription
- regulation of gene expression
- regulation of myofibroblast cell apoptotic process
- response to ethanol
- response to growth factor
- response to oxygen-glucose deprivation
- response to wounding
- somatic stem cell population maintenance
- tissue regeneration
Molecular functions
- DNA binding
- DNA-binding transcription activator activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
- DNA-binding transcription factor activity
- DNA-binding transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
- miRNA binding
- nitric-oxide synthase binding
- RNA polymerase II cis-regulatory region sequence-specific DNA binding
- sequence-specific DNA binding
- transcription cis-regulatory region binding
Cellular components
Protein domainsUniProt · Pfam · InterPro
KeywordsUniProt
InteractionsUniProt · HPA
Protein binding partners of SOX2 in the human serome: UniProt-annotated complex subunits plus reported interactors. Each links to its own Seroatlas record.
Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis
Seroatlas reads SOX2 as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against SOX2 could matter depends on whether native SOX2 is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.
SOX2 is annotated as predominantly intracellular. Intracellular proteins are common autoantibody markers, becoming visible to the immune system after cell injury or altered processing, but are usually markers of disease rather than direct drivers.
Annotation status
The present source text does not explicitly label SOX2 as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.
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