Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2021, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5): 359-364.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0253-9608.2021.05.006

• Special Issue for Advanced Immunochemical Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Development and application of C2H2 zinc finger protein-based drug delivery technology

LI Lu, WEI Xuan, LIU Jia   

  1. Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China
  • Received:2021-06-19 Online:2021-10-22 Published:2021-10-22

Abstract: Zinc finger proteins (ZFPs) are widespread transcription factors in eukaryotes and play important roles in gene expression
regulation. Recent studies have shown that C2H2 ZFPs can penetrate mammalian cells through macropinocytosis. In further studies, we have found that C2H2 ZFPs are capable of achieving highly efficient cellular delivery of a wide range of proteins including both reporter proteins and therapeutic proteins, with superior cell-penetrating activity to traditional cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs). In this review, we introduce the basic biology and the cell-penetrating activities of ZFPs, and discuss the application of C2H2 ZFPs in macromolecular drug delivery.