Structure, expression and chromosomal localization of Zfp-1, a murine zinc finger protein gene.

Zinc finger proteins (Zfp) are encoded by a large family of genes present in many organisms including yeast and human. Some of them are transcriptional activators and bind specifically to DNA by zinc mediated folded structures commonly known as zinc fingers. The Drosophila Krüppel (Kr) is a segmentation gene and encodes a zinc finger protein. Using a probe from the finger domain of Kr, we have isolated a structurally related gene Zfp-1 from the mouse. In this paper, we report the complete nucleotide sequence of two cDNA clones and the amino acid sequence deduced from them. The putative Zfp-1 protein contains in addition to 7 zinc fingers, two helix-turn-helix motifs. During murine embryogenesis, the Zfp-1 was found to express at a peak level in day 12 embryos. The ubiquitously expressed Zfp-1 gene is located in the 16q region on mouse chromosome 8, between the uvomorulin and the tyrosine amino transferase genes.