The Drosophila gene Yippee reveals a novel family of putative zinc bindingproteins highly conserved among eukaryotes

An intracellular Drosophila protein,Yippee, was identified in a yeast inter action trap screen as physically interacting with Hyalophora cecropia Hemol in. The Yippee gene was isolated, structurally characterized, and mapped to the region 12A on the X-chromosome. Yippee contains a putative zinc-finger -like metal binding domain. It is the first characterized member of a conse rved gene family of proteins present in diverse eukaryotic organisms, rangi ng from cellular slime mould to humans. A human cDNA clone was isolated and shown to be 76% identical to Drosophila Yippee. Yippee is ubiquitously exp ressed in different developmental stages of Drosophila and in different fet al tissues from human. Although the Hemolin-Yippee interaction remains to b e further elucidated, the high degree of Yippee sequence conservation betwe en a wide range of species suggests that this protein is of general importa nce in eukaryotes.