May be involved in chondrogenesis (cartilage development) during bone formation. Unlikely to play a role in sex determination but may function during testicular and ovarian differentiation (By similarity). Transcriptional activator. Acts early in neural crest formation, functioning redundantly with the other group E Sox factors sox8 and sox10 to induce neural crest progenitors. Induces sox10 expression downstream of wnt-signaling. Principally involved in development of the cranial neural cres