Table 1.

The nine types of zinc finger domains.

Zinc-Binding Domain Type	Consensus Sequence	Function	Examples	References
C2H2	C-X2-4-C-X12-H-X3-5-H	Transcription, nucleic acid binding	TFIIIA	[24]
C2HC	C-X2-C-X4-H-X4-C	Genome packaging, single-stranded nucleic binding	Retroviral nucleocapsid	[29,30,31,32,33]
C3H	C-X6-14-C-X4-5-C-X3-H	RNA binding	Nup475	[26,34,35]
C4	C-X2-C-X17-C-X2-C	DNA binding	GATA-1	[36]
C6	C-X2-C-X6-C-X6-C-X2-C-X6-C	DNA binding	GAL4	[44]
C3HC4	C-X2-C-X9-39-C-X1-3-H-X2-3-C-X2-C-X4-48-C-X2-C	Protein-protein interaction, nucleic acid binding	RING finger	[38,39,40,45]
C2HC5	C-X2-C-X17-19-H-X2-C-X2-C-X2-C-X16-20-C-X2-3-C-C-X2-C-X17-C-X2-C	Protein-protein interaction, DNA binding	lin-11, isl-1 and mec-3	[43]
C4HC3	C-X2-C-X11-21-C-X2-C-X4-H-X2-C-X14-17-C-X2-C	Transcription, DNA binding	Requiem, ALL-1	[46,47]
C8	C-X2-C-X13-C-X2-C-X15-C-X5-C-X12-C-X4-C	Oligomerization, DNA binding	steroid-thyroid receptor	[48]

C: cysteine; H: histidine; X: any amino acid.