TOX

This article is about the protein. For other uses, see Tox (disambiguation).

Thymocyte selection-associated high mobility group box
PDB rendering based on 2co9.
Available structures PDB Ortholog search: PDBe, RCSB List of PDB id codes 2co9
Identifiers
Symbols	TOX ; TOX1
External IDs	OMIM: 606863 MGI: 2181659 HomoloGene: 8822 GeneCards: TOX Gene
Gene ontology Molecular function • DNA binding • chromatin binding Cellular component • nucleus Biological process • chromatin remodeling • regulation of transcription, DNA-templated Sources: Amigo / QuickGO
RNA expression pattern
More reference expression data
Orthologs
Species	Human	Mouse
Entrez	9760	252838
Ensembl	ENSG00000198846	ENSMUSG00000041272
UniProt	O94900	Q66JW3
RefSeq (mRNA)	NM_014729	NM_145711
RefSeq (protein)	NP_055544	NP_663757
Location (UCSC)	Chr 8: 58.81 – 59.12 Mb	Chr 4: 6.69 – 6.99 Mb
PubMed search	[1]	[2]

Thymocyte selection-associated high mobility group box protein TOX is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TOX gene.

Structure and function

The TOX gene encodes a protein that belongs to a large superfamily of chromatin associated proteins that share an approximately 75 amino acid DNA binding motif, the HMG (high mobility group)-box (named after that found in the canonical member of the family, high mobility group protein 1). Some high mobility group (HMG) box proteins (e.g., LEF1) contain a single HMG box motif and bind DNA in a sequence-specific manner, while other members of this family (e.g., HMGB1) have multiple HMG boxes and bind DNA in a sequence-independent but structure-dependent manner. While TOX has a single HMG-box motif, it is predicted to bind DNA in a sequence-independent manner. TOX is also a member of a small subfamily of proteins (TOX2, TOX3, and TOX4) that share almost identical HMG-box sequences. TOX3 has been identified as a breast cancer susceptibility locus. TOX is highly expressed in the thymus, the site of development of T lymphocytes. Knockout mice that lack TOX have a severe defect in development of certain subsets of T lymphocytes.