To identify genes that can repress the expression of growth regulatory molecules, a human fetal cDNA library was screened by Williams et al with a degenerate oligonucleotide that corresponds to the conserved stretch of 6 amino acids connecting successive zinc-finger regions in the Wilms' tumor suppressor/Egr-1 family of DNA-binding proteins. One clone, designated zinc-finger protein 174 (ZNF174), corresponds to a putative transcription factor with three zinc fingers and a novel finger-associated domain, designated the SCAN box.
General function
Nucleic acid binding, DNA binding, Transcription factor
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Cellular localization
Nuclear
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Ovarian function
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Expression regulated by
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Ovarian localization
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The 2.5-kilobase transcript of ZNF174 is expressed in a variety of human organs, but most strongly in adult testis and ovary. Fusion of the upstream regulatory region of ZNF174 to the DNA-binding domain of GAL4 revealed that the gene could confer a repression function on the heterologous DNA-binding domain (Williams et al., 1995).