MAZ (MYC Associated Zinc Finger Protein)

Alias_names	MYC-associated zinc finger protein (purine-binding transcription factor)
Alias_symbol (synonym)	ZF87
	Pur-1
	Zif87
	ZNF801
Other alias	PUR1 (Purine-Binding Transcription Factor)
	SAF-1 (Serum Amyloid A Activating Factor 1)
	SAF-2 (Serum Amyloid A Activating Factor 2)
	SAF-3 (Serum Amyloid A Activating Factor 3)
	ZF87 (Transcription Factor Zif87)
	ZNF801 (Zinc Finger Protein 801)
HGNC (Hugo)	MAZ
LocusID (NCBI)	4150
Atlas_Id	41307
Location	16p11.2  [Link to chromosome band 16p11]
Location_base_pair	Starts at 29806537 and ends at 29811183 bp from pter ( according to hg19-Feb_2009)  [Mapping MAZ.png]
	UCSC representation of the gene on chromosome 16. RefSeq sequence shows introns as lines, exons as boxes and encoding exons as thicker boxes. Retrieved from: http://genome.ucsc.edu on November 6, 2017.

	The human MAZ consists of six exons, the first five of which are encoding exons; total exon length is 4.57 kb (Song et al., 1998).
Description	The human MAZ contains six exons; the encoding sequence consists of 1431 bases (Song et al., 1998).
Transcription	The human gene encoding for MAZ is located on chromosome 16p11.2 and is transcribed as an mRNA of 2.7 kilobases (kb). The primary transcript encodes a 477 amino-acid long MAZ-1 protein with a 60-kDa molecular mass that contains six C2H2-type zinc-finger domains responsible for DNA binding. MAZ protein has two additional isoforms: MAZ-2 and MAZ-3. The MAZ-2 transcript is generated by an alternative splicing that results in the insertion of a new exon originating from the non-coding sequences of the intron 4. This transcript gives rise to the MAZ-2 isoform, which is a 493 amino-acids long protein with distinct carboxyl-terminus which contains two additional zinc-finger domains (Ray et al., 2002). The MAZ-2 isoform is reported to have a higher DNA-binding activity and to act as a negative regulator of MAZ-1 function (Ray et al., 2002). The MAZ-3 transcript is expressed at very low levels under normal physiological condition in various tissues, but is highly expressed during inflammation. The MAZ-3 transcript is transcribed from a distinct upstream promoter and is processed with alternative splicing. The MAZ-3 transcript is translated from a different starting codon that gives rise to the MAZ-3 isoform of 455 amino-acids (Ray et al., 2009).
Pseudogene	No reported pseudogenes are found.

	Domains of MAZ are depicted with vertical colored lines; Blacks are Poly-Alanine repeats; Green is Poly-Proline tract; Red column is Poly-Glycine repeat. C2H2-type zinc finger domains of MAZ-1 are represented in dark blue-green vertical lines.
Description	The human MAZ protein contains three Poly alanine, one poly-proline and one poly-glycine domains (Song et al., 1998). Poly-alanine repeats considered to have role in cellular localization of the protein; the alteration in the intracellular distribution may contribute to diseases, including muscular dystrophy (OPMD) (Oma et al., 2004). Similarly, poly-glycine repeats are responsible in protein targeting (Uthayakumar et al., 2012). Poly-proline tracks, on the other hand, generates structures that are predicted to have important roles in protein-protein interactions (Williamson, 1994). The human MAZ-1 contains six C2H2-type zinc finger domains (Song et al., 1998), which are frequently occurring in proteins involved in transcriptional regulation.
	Expression and synthesis of MAZ in various cancerous tissues. Retrieved from: http://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000103495-MAZ/cancer on November 2, 2017.
Expression	MAZ is expressed in the human heart, brain, lungs, liver, skeletal muscle, pancreas, and prostate (Jiao et al., 2013; Dudas et al., 2008). The synthesis of MAZ protein is observed to occur at high levels in breast, thyroid and urothelial cancers as well as in melanoma (Ugai et al., 2001)
	Immunofluorescent staining of human cell line MCF7. Retrieved from: http://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000103495-MAZ/cell on November 2, 2017. Immunofluorescent staining of MCF7 cells derived from breast adenocarcinoma shows that MAZ localizes to the nucleus.
Localisation	MAZ is located in the nucleus (Jordan-Sciutto et al, 2000).
Function	MAZ as a transcription factor interacts with a permutation of the GGGAGGG sequence motif present in GC-rich promoter regions of target genes by unfolding of G-quadruplex structures of DNA (Cogoi et al., 2014) to activate or repress transcription. MAZ is also suggested to participate in transcription termination and polyadenylation. Several oncogenes, including MYC, HRAS, PPARG, TSG101, VEGFA, CAV1, PTHR1, NOS3, MYB, and hTER, are transcriptionally regulated by MAZ (Jun Song et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2016; Ray et al., 2002). Deregulated expression of MAZ appears to participate in the development and/or progress various tissue malignancies including the breast, thyroid, hepatocellular and urothelial cancers (Jiao et al., 2013; Dudas et al., 2008; Yu et al., 2017; Ray, 2011; Zhu et al., 2016)
Homology	The human MAZ protein is conserved 100% in chimpanzee (P.troglodytes), 98.4% in mouse (M.musculus), and 98.4% in rat (R.norvegicus); with conserved DNA of 99.8%, 93.2%, and 92.7%, respectively (Retrieved from: https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi. November 2, 2017).

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