THE ZNF75 ZINC-FINGER GENE SUBFAMILY - ISOLATION AND MAPPING OF THE 4MEMBERS IN HUMANS AND GREAT APES

We have previously reported (Villa ct al. (1993), Genomics 18: 223) th e characterization of the human ZNF75 gene located on Xq26, which has only limited homology (less than 65%) to other ZF genes in the databas es. Here, we describe three human zinc finger genes with 86 to 95% hom ology to ZNF75 at the nucleotide level, which represent all the member s of the human ZNF75 subfamily. One of these, ZNF75B, is a pseudogene mapped to chromosome 12q13. The other two, ZNF75A and ZNF75C, maintain an ORF in the sequenced region, and at least the latter is expressed in the U937 cell line. They were mapped to chromosomes 16 and 11, resp ectively. All these genes are conserved in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. The ZNF75B homologue is a pseudogene in all three great ap es, and in chimpanzee it is located on chromosome 10 (phylogenetic XII ), at p13 (corresponding to the human 12q13). The chimpanzee homologue of ZNF75 is also located on the Xq26 chromosome, in the same region, as detected by in situ hybridization. As expected, nucleotide changes were clearly more abundant between human and orangutan than between hu man and chimpanzee or gorilla homologues. Members of the same class we re more similar to each other than to the other homologues within the same species. This suggests that the duplication and/or retrotranscrip tion events occurred in a common ancestor long before great ape specia tion. This, together with the existence of at least two genes in cows and horses, suggests a relatively high conservation of this gene famil y. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.