Cloning and characterization of a novel zinc finger gene in Xp11.2

During a systematic search for open reading frames in chromosome band Xp11.2, a novel gene (ZNF157) that encodes a putative 506-amino-acid protein with the sequence characteristics of a zinc-finger-containing transcription factor was isolated. ZNF157 is encoded by four exons distributed over > 20 kb of genomic DNA. The second and third exons contain sequences similar to those of the previously described KRAB-A and KRAB-B domains, motifs that have been shown to mediate transcriptional repression in other members of the protein family. A fourth exon contains 12 zinc finger DNA binding motifs and finger linking regions characteristic of ZNF proteins of the Krüppel family. ZNF157 maps to the telomeric end of a cluster of ZNF genes that includes ZNF21, ZNF41, and ZNF81.