PU.1/Spi-1: Products

PU.1 (Purine-rich nucleic acid binding protein 1; also 31 kDa transforming protein and SPI-1) is a member of the PU subfamily, ETS family of transcription factors. Although its predicted MW is 31 kDa, it appears to run anomalously high in SDS-PAGE at 40-45 kDa. PU.1 is a monomeric hematopoietic protein that regulates the differentiation of early myeloid and lymphoid progenitors. High PU.1 levels favor granulocyte and macrophage production, while low levels generate magakaryocytes, erythrocytes, T and B cells. Human PU.1 is 270 amino acids (aa) in length. It contains an N-terminal acidic/polyGln transactivation region (aa 34-99), a non-destabilizing PEST sequence (aa 117-165) and a C-terminal ETS DNA-binding domain (aa 170-253). PU.1 is phosphorylated on Ser146, allowing it to bind to Pip. Over aa 1-169, human PU.1 shares 88% aa identity with mouse PU.1.