THE CYSTEINE-RICH PROTEIN FAMILY OF HIGHLY RELATED LIM-DOMAIN PROTEINS

Here we describe a family of closely related LIM do main proteins in a vian cells, The LlM motif defines a zinc binding domain that is found in a variety of transcriptional regulators, proto-oncogene products, a nd proteins associated with sites of cell substratum con tact, One typ e of LIM-domain protein, called the cysteine-rich protein (CRP), is ch aracterized by the presence of two LIM domains linked to short glycine -rich repeats and a potential nuclear localization signal, We have ide ntified and characterized two evolutionarily conserved members of the CRP family, CRP1 and CRP2, in chicken and quail, Expression of the gen es encoding both CRP1 and CRP2 is differentially regulated in normal v ersus transformed cells, raising the possibility that members of the C RP family may function in control of cell growth and differentiation.