Background: Experimentally validated data on gene regulation are hard to obtain. In particular, information about transcription factor binding sites in regulatory regions are scattered around in the literature. This impedes their systematic in-context analysis, e.g. the inference of their conservation in evolutionary history.
Results: We demonstrate the power of integrative bioinformatics by including curated transcription factor binding site information into the UCSC genome browser, using wiki and custom tracks, which enable easy publication of annotation data. Data integration allows to investigate the evolution of gene regulation of the pluripotency-associated genes Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog. For the first time, experimentally validated transcription factor binding sites in the regulatory regions of all three genes were assembled together based on manual curation of data from 39 publications. Using the UCSC genome browser, these data were then visualized in the context of multi-species conservation based on genomic alignment. We confirm previous hypotheses regarding the evolutionary age of specific regulatory patterns, establishing their "deep homology". We also confirm some other principles of Carroll's "Genetic theory of Morphological Evolution", such as "mosaic pleiotropy", exemplified by the dual role of Sox2 reflected in its regulatory region.
Conclusions: We were able to elucidate some aspects of the evolution of gene regulation for three genes associated with pluripotency. Based on the expected return on investment for the community, we encourage other scientists to contribute experimental data on gene regulation (original work as well as data collected for reviews) to the UCSC system, to enable studies of the evolution of gene regulation on a large scale, and to report their findings.