Rosenfeld R, Margalit H
Department of Molecular Genetics, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.
J Biomol Struct Dyn. 1993 Dec;11(3):557-70. doi: 10.1080/07391102.1993.10508015.
The zinc finger, one of the major structural motifs used for sequence specific DNA binding, has been identified in many regulatory proteins. By analogy, involvement in nucleic acid recognition has been implied for proteins that contain two cysteines and two histidines, spaced in accordance with the zinc finger motif. In this study we identify sequence dependent characteristics that are conserved in the DNA-binding zinc fingers and are probably required for a functional DNA-binding zinc finger. Examination of the conserved properties in view of the solved three dimensional structure of a zinc finger, confirms the importance of most of these properties. The absence of the identified physical-chemical characteristics from CCHH containing sequences of non-DNA binding proteins suggest that they can be used to distinguish between spurious and actual DNA binding zinc fingers.
锌指结构是用于序列特异性DNA结合的主要结构基序之一，已在许多调节蛋白中被鉴定出来。以此类推，对于那些含有两个半胱氨酸和两个组氨酸且间隔符合锌指基序的蛋白质，人们认为它们参与核酸识别。在本研究中，我们鉴定了DNA结合锌指中保守的序列依赖性特征，这些特征可能是功能性DNA结合锌指所必需的。鉴于已解析的锌指三维结构来审视这些保守特性，证实了其中大多数特性的重要性。非DNA结合蛋白中含CCHH的序列缺乏所鉴定的物理化学特征，这表明它们可用于区分虚假的和实际的DNA结合锌指。
