Function and evolution of zinc finger transcription factors

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Unlike most transcription factors (TFs), the large C2H2 zinc finger family displays widespread duplication and diversifying selection in metazoans. Most C2H2 proteins are poorly characterized, and therefore it remains unknown what are their functional roles and what drives their evolutionary trajectories. In one case, however – that of the tetrapod-specific KRAB-C2H2 proteins, which represent roughly half of all human C2H2 proteins – recent evidence indicates that the family evolves to silence retroelements by recruiting the KAP1 corepressor.