What Is a Zinc Finger?

A zinc finger refers to a ring consisting of approximately 30 amino acids and a Zn2 + coordinated to 4 Cys or 2 Cys and 2 His on the ring, forming a finger-like structure.

Zinc finger

Definition of zinc finger

It usually consists of a series of zinc fingers. A repeating structure of amino acid patterns, cystine-bound zinc fingers separated by a certain distance, can bind to certain RNA / DNA.

Zinc finger and action

Zinc finger proteins are a class of transcription factors with finger-like domains that play an important role in gene regulation. According to the different conserved domains, zinc finger proteins can be divided into C2H2, C4 and C6 types. Zinc fingers regulate the expression of genes, cell differentiation, and embryonic development at the level of transcription and translation through specific binding to the sequences of target molecules DNA, RNA, and DNA-RNA, and binding to themselves or other zinc finger proteins.