Zinc finger



Zinc fingers are small protein structural motifs that can coordinate one or more zinc ions to help stabilize their folds. They can be classified into several different structural families (zinc finger proteins) and typically function as interaction modules that bind DNA, RNA, proteins, or small molecules. The name "zinc finger" was originally coined to describe the finger-like appearance of a diagram showing the hypothesized structure of the repeated unit in Xenopus laevis transcription factor IIIA.

Classes
Zinc fingers coordinate zinc ions with a combination of cysteine and histidine residues. They can be classified by the type and order of these zinc coordinating residues (e.g., Cys2His2, Cys4, and Cys6). A more systematic method classifies them into different "fold groups" based on the overall shape of the protein backbone in the folded domain. The most common "fold groups" of zinc fingers are the Cys2His2-like (the "classic zinc finger"), treble clef, and zinc ribbon.

The following table shows the different structures and their key features:

Cys2His2
The Cys2His2-like fold group is by far the best-characterized class of zinc fingers and are extremely common in mammalian transcription factors. These domains adopt a simple ββα fold and have the amino acid Sequence motif:

X2-Cys-X2,4-Cys-X12-His-X3,4,5-His

This class of zinc fingers can have a variety of functions such as binding RNA and mediating protein-protein interactions, but is best known for its role in sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins such as Zif268. In such proteins, individual zinc finger domains typically occur as tandem repeats with two, three, or more fingers comprising the DNA-binding domain of the protein. These tandem arrays can bind in the major groove of DNA and are typically spaced at 3-bp intervals. The α-helix of each domain (often called the "recognition helix") can make sequence-specific contacts to DNA bases; residues from a single recognition helix can contact 4 or more bases to yield an overlapping pattern of contacts with adjacent zinc fingers.

Gag-knuckle
This fold group is defined by two short β-strands connected by a turn (zinc knuckle) followed by a short helix or loop and resembles the classical Cys2His2 motif with a large portion of the helix and β-hairpin truncated.

The retroviral nucleocapsid (NC) protein from HIV and other related retroviruses are examples of proteins possessing these motifs. The gag-knuckle zinc finger in the HIV NC protein is the target of a class of drugs known as zinc finger inhibitors.

Treble-clef
The treble-clef motif consists of a β-hairpin at the N-terminus and an α-helix at the C-terminus that each contribute two ligands for zinc binding, although a loop and a second β-hairpin of varying length and conformation can be present between the N-terminal β-hairpin and the C-terminal α-helix. These fingers are present in a diverse group of proteins that frequently do not share sequence or functional similarity with each other. The best-characterized proteins containing treble-clef zinc fingers are the nuclear hormone receptors.

Zinc Ribbon
The zinc ribbon fold is characterised by two beta-hairpins forming two structurally similar zinc-binding sub-sites.

Zn2/Cys6
The canonical members of this class contain a binuclear zinc cluster in which two zinc ions are bound by six cysteine residues. These zinc fingers can be found in several transcription factors including the yeast Gal4 protein.

Engineered zinc finger arrays
Generating arrays of engineered Cys2His2 zinc fingers is the most developed method for creating proteins capable of targeting desired genomic DNA sequences. The majority of engineered zinc finger arrays are based on the zinc finger domain of the murine transcription factor Zif268, although some groups have used zinc finger arrays based on the human transcription factor SP1. Zif268 has three individual zinc finger motifs that collectively bind a 9 bp sequence with high affinity. The structure of this protein bound to DNA was solved in 1991 and stimulated a great deal of research into engineered zinc finger arrays. In 1994 and 1995, a number of groups used phage display to alter the specificity of a single zinc finger of Zif268. Carlos F. Barbas et al. also reported the development of zinc finger technology in the patent literature and have been granted a number of patents that have been important for the commercial development of zinc finger technology. Typical engineered zinc finger arrays have between 3 and 6 individual zinc finger motifs and bind target sites ranging from 9 basepairs to 18 basepairs in length. Arrays with 6 zinc finger motifs are particularly attractive because they bind a target site that is long enough to have a good chance of being unique in a mammalian genome. There are two main methods currently used to generate engineered zinc finger arrays, modular assembly and a bacterial selection system, and there is some debate about which method is best suited for most applications.

Modular assembly
The most straightforward method to generate new zinc finger arrays is to combine smaller zinc finger "modules" of known specificity. The structure of the zinc finger protein Zif268 bound to DNA described by Pavletich and Pabo in their 1991 publication has been key to much of this work and describes the concept of obtaining fingers for each of the 64 possible base pair triplets and then mixing and matching these fingers to design proteins with any desired sequence specificity. The most common modular assembly process involves combining separate zinc fingers that can each recognize a 3 basepair DNA sequence to generate 3-finger, 4-, 5-, or 6-finger arrays that recognize target sites ranging from 9 basepairs to 18 basepairs in length. Another method uses 2-finger modules to generate zinc finger arrays with up to six individual zinc fingers. The Barbas Laboratory of The Scripps Research Institute used phage display to develop and characterize zinc finger domains that recognize most DNA triplet sequences while another group isolated and characterized individual fingers from the human genome. A potential drawback with modular assembly in general is that specificities of individual zinc finger can overlap and can depend on the context of the surrounding zinc fingers and DNA. A recent study demonstrated that a high proportion of 3-finger zinc finger arrays generated by modular assembly fail to bind their intended target with sufficient affinity in a bacterial two-hybrid assay and fail to function as zinc finger nucleases, but the success rate was somewhat higher when sites of the form GNNGNNGNN were targeted. A subsequent study used modular assembly to generate zinc finger nucleases with both 3-finger arrays and 4-finger arrays and observed a much higher success rate with 4-finger arrays. A variant of modular assembly that takes the context of neighboring fingers into account has also been reported and this method tends to yield proteins with improved performance relative to standard modular assembly.

Selection methods
Numerous selection methods have been used to generate zinc finger arrays capable of targeting desired sequences. Initial selection efforts utilized phage display to select proteins that bound a given DNA target from a large pool of partially randomized zinc finger arrays. This technique is difficult to use on more than a single zinc finger at a time, so a multi-step processes that generated a completely optimized 3-finger array by adding and optimizing a single zinc finger at a time was developed. More recent efforts have utilized yeast one-hybrid systems, bacterial one-hybrid and two-hybrid systems, and mammalian cells. A promising new method to select novel 3-finger zinc finger arrays utilizes a bacterial two-hybrid system and has been dubbed "OPEN" by its creators. This system combines pre-selected pools of individual zinc fingers that were each selected to bind a given triplet and then utilizes a second round of selection to obtain 3-finger arrays capable of binding a desired 9-bp sequence. This system was developed by the Zinc Finger Consortium as an alternative to commercial sources of engineered zinc finger arrays. It is somewhat difficult to directly compare the binding properties of proteins generated with this method to proteins generated by modular assembly as the specificity profiles of proteins generated by the OPEN method have never been reported.

Applications
Engineered zinc finger arrays can then be used in numerous applications such as artificial transcription factors, zinc finger methylases, zinc finger recombinases, and Zinc finger nucleases. While initial studies with another DNA-binding domain from bacterial TAL effectors show promise,   it remains to be seen whether these domains are suitable for some or all of the applications where engineered zinc fingers are currently used. Artificial transcription factors with engineered zinc finger arrays have been used in numerous scientific studies, and an artificial transcription factor that activates expression of VEGF is currently being evaluated in humans as a potential treatment for several clinical indications. Zinc finger nucleases have become useful reagents for manipulating genomes of many higher organisms including Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, tobacco, corn, zebrafish, various types of mammalian cells, and rats. An ongoing clinical trial is evaluating Zinc finger nucleases that disrupt the CCR5 gene in CD4+ human T-cells as a potential treatment for HIV/AIDS.