Zinc Finger Protein 202 (ZNF202)

Deletions at 11q23 have been found in approximately half of breast, lung, ovarian, and cervical carcinomas as well as in melanomas, suggesting that the region harbors at least 1 tumor susceptibility gene. There are 2 distinct regions of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at 11q23. Monaco et al. (1998) identified cDNAs corresponding to ZNF202, a gene located within LOH region 2. Alternative splicing gives rise to alpha and beta ZNF202 protein isoforms, with predicted lengths of 424 and 648 amino acids, respectively. ZNF202-beta contains 8 zinc fingers in the C-terminal half. Northern blot analysis revealed that ZNF202 is expressed as a 4- to 4.5-kb mRNA almost exclusively in testis. The gene is also expressed in breast carcinoma cell lines. The ZNF202 gene contains 6 exons and spans approximately 10 kb.