Murine ZFP-37 is a member of the large family of C2H2 type zinc finger
proteins. It is characterized by a truncated NH2-terminal
Kruppel-associated box and is thought to play a role in transcriptional
regulation. During development Zfp-37 mRNA is most abundant in the
developing central nervous system, and in the adult mouse expression is
restricted largely to testis and brain. Here we show that at the protein
level ZFP-37 is detected readily in neurons of the adult central nervous
system but hardly in testis. In brain ZFP-37 is associated with nucleoli
and appears to contact heterochromatin. Mouse and human ZFP-37 have a
basic histone H1-like linker domain, located between KRAB and zinc finger
regions, which binds double-stranded DNA. Thus we suggest that ZFP-37 is a
structural protein of the neuronal nucleus which plays a role in the
maintenance of specialized chromatin domains