Cloning of Human and Mouse cDNAs Encoding Novel Zinc Finger Proteins Expressed in Cerebellum and Hippocampus

We identified a novel gene,kf-1,highly expressed in the normal cerebellum but not in the cerebral cortex, the expression of which could have been augmented in the cerebral cortex of a sporadic Alzheimer's disease patient. We cloned human and mouse entirekf-1cDNAs encoding conserved 79 kDa proteins containing a zinc-binding RING-H2 finger motif at the carboxy-terminus as found in acetylcholine receptor-associated protein (RAPsyn). The 3′-untranslated regions are highly conserved between human and mouse as to constitute a common mRNA secondary structure.In situhybridization analysis of mouse brain sections revealed strongkf-1expression in the cerebellum and hippocampus. We propose that KF-1 is involved in membranous protein-sorting apparatus similarly to RAPsyn. We mapped the humankf-1gene to 2p11.2.