Genomic targets of the serendipity beta and delta zinc finger proteins and their respective DNA recognition sites.

The closely related Drosophila serendipity (sry) beta (beta) and delta (delta) Cys2-His2 zinc finger proteins show partly overlapping in vitro DNA binding specificities and distinct patterns of binding sites on polytene chromosomes. Using a newly developed procedure, we identified genomic DNA targets for these two proteins. Both the sry beta and delta proteins protect an 18-22 base region from DNase I digestion within each analysed genomic binding site, that includes a 13 bp consensus sequence. The consensus recognition sites sry beta 5'-YCAGAGATGCGCA-3' and sry delta 5'-YTAGAGATGGRAA-3' thus differ by nucleotides at four out of 13 positions. They are determinant for specific binding of the sry beta and delta proteins, respectively, produced in Escherichia coli or present in Drosophila embryos. We further show that sry beta is the major (if not exclusive) Drosophila nuclear protein that specifically binds the 5'-CAGAGTGCGC-3' sequence. The identified sry beta genomic targets are all contained within single-copy DNA in euchromatic regions of the genome. Two out of the five characterized in detail map at cytological positions coincident with binding sites of the native sry beta protein on polytene chromosomes.