Kita Katsuhiro, Morkos Celine, Nolan Kathleen
Department of Biology, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States.
World J Methodol. 2024 Dec 20;14(4):97664. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v14.i4.97664.
In this Editorial review, we would like to focus on a very recent discovery showing the global autosomal gene regulation by Y- and inactivated X-chromosomal transcription factors, zinc finger gene on the Y chromosome (ZFY) and zinc finger protein X-linked (ZFX). ZFX and ZFY are both zinc-finger proteins that encode general transcription factors abundant in hematopoietic and embryonic stem cells. Although both proteins are homologs, interestingly, the regulation of self-renewal by these transcriptional factors is almost exclusive to ZFX. This fact implies that there are some differential roles between ZFX and ZFY in regulating the maintenance of self-renewal activity in stem cells. Besides the maintenance of stemness, ZFX overexpression or mutations may be linked to certain cancers. Although cancers and stem cells are double-edged swords, there is no study showing the link between ZFX activity and the telomere. Thus, stemness or cancers with ZFX may be linked to other molecules, such as Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and others. Based on very recent studies and a few lines of evidence in the past decade, it appears that the ZFX is linked to the canonical Wnt signaling, which is one possible mechanism to explain the role of ZFX in the self-renewal of stem cells.
在这篇编辑评论中，我们将重点关注一项最新发现，该发现揭示了Y染色体和失活X染色体上的转录因子——Y染色体上的锌指基因（ZFY）和X连锁锌指蛋白（ZFX）对常染色体基因的全局调控。ZFX和ZFY都是锌指蛋白，它们编码在造血干细胞和胚胎干细胞中大量存在的一般转录因子。尽管这两种蛋白是同源物，但有趣的是，这些转录因子对自我更新的调控几乎只针对ZFX。这一事实表明，ZFX和ZFY在调节干细胞自我更新活性的维持方面存在一些不同的作用。除了维持干性外，ZFX的过表达或突变可能与某些癌症有关。尽管癌症和干细胞是双刃剑，但尚无研究表明ZFX活性与端粒之间存在联系。因此，具有ZFX的干性或癌症可能与其他分子有关，如Oct4、Sox2、Klf4等。基于最近的研究以及过去十年的一些证据，似乎ZFX与经典Wnt信号通路有关，这是解释ZFX在干细胞自我更新中作用的一种可能机制。
