Zinc Finger - History

History

Zinc fingers were first identified in a study of transcription in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. A study of the transcription of a particular RNA sequence revealed that the binding strength of a small transcription factor (transcription factor IIIA) was due to the presence of zinc-coordinating finger-like structures. The name "zinc finger" was proposed in the subsequent paper, in which a detailed study of this structure alone was conducted. More recent work in the characterization of proteins in various organisms has revealed the ubiquity of zinc ions in polypeptide stabilization.

Read more about this topic:  Zinc Finger

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
    —Derek Wall (b. 1965)

    “The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
    —Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    “So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)