Cysteine Rich Protein 2 (CRIP2)

The LIM domain is present in a wide variety of proteins with diverse functions and exhibits characteristic arrangements of cysteine and histidine residues with zinc-binding properties. By low stringency screening of a human small intestine cDNA library with a rat cysteine-rich intestinal protein (CRIP1) cDNA, Karim et al. (1996) isolated a cDNA encoding CRIP2, which they called ESP1/CRP2. The cDNA predicts a 208-amino acid protein containing 2 LIM domains. CRIP2 shares 93% amino acid sequence identity with its rat homolog, called Esp1 or Crp2. Northern blot analysis showed widespread tissue expression of the 1.3-kb CRIP2 mRNA, with the highest level of expression found in heart. In testis, a second 1.7-kb mRNA was also detected.