title: Designer zinc finger proteins: tools for creating artificial DNA-binding functional proteins.
abstract: The design of artificial functional DNA-binding proteins has long been a goal for several research laboratories. The zinc finger proteins, which typically contain many fingers linked in tandem fashion, are some of the most studied DNA-binding proteins. The zinc finger protein's tandem arrangement and its the ability to recognize a wide variety of DNA sequences make it an attractive framework to design novel DNA-binding peptides/proteins. Our laboratory has utilized several design strategies to create novel zinc finger peptides by re-engineering the C(2)H(2)-type zinc finger motif of transcription factor Sp1. Some of the engineered zinc fingers have shown nuclease and catalytic functional properties. Based on these results, we present the design strategies for the creation of novel zinc fingers.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Doshisha Women's University, Koudo, Kyotanabe-Shi, Kyoto 610 0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Muthu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dhanasekaran
authors.forename: Shigeru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Negi
authors.forename: Yukio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugiura
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015202:Protein Engineering; D016329:Sp1 Transcription Factor / Q000737:chemistry; D016335:Zinc Fingers
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D016329:Sp1 Transcription Factor