{"doi":"10.7554/elife.56337","title":"KRAB-zinc finger protein gene expansion in response to active retrotransposons in the murine lineage","abstract":"The Krüppel-associated box zinc finger protein (KRAB-ZFP) family diversified in mammals. The majority of human KRAB-ZFPs bind transposable elements (TEs), however, since most TEs are inactive in humans it is unclear whether KRAB-ZFPs emerged to suppress TEs. We demonstrate that many recently emerged murine KRAB-ZFPs also bind to TEs, including the active ETn, IAP, and L1 families. Using a CRISPR/Cas9-based engineering approach, we genetically deleted five large clusters of KRAB-ZFPs and demonstrate that target TEs are de-repressed, unleashing TE-encoded enhancers. Homozygous knockout mice lacking one of two KRAB-ZFP gene clusters on chromosome 2 and chromosome 4 were nonetheless viable. In pedigrees of chromosome 4 cluster KRAB-ZFP mutants, we identified numerous novel ETn insertions with a modest increase in mutants. Our data strongly support the current model that recent waves of retrotransposon activity drove the expansion of KRAB-ZFP genes in mice and that many KRAB-ZFPs play a redundant role restricting TE activity.","journal":"eLife","year":2020,"id":52328,"datarank":2.6994447574566776,"base_score":4.919980925828125,"endowment":4.919980925828125,"self_citation_contribution":0.7379971388742189,"citation_network_contribution":1.9614476185824585,"self_endowment_contribution":0.7379971388742189,"citer_contribution":1.9614476185824585,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":136,"citer_count":100,"citers_with_citation_signal":90,"citers_with_endowment":90,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9598,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"GEO":["GSE115291","GSM1406445","GSM1327148"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":264032,"name":"Alberto De Iaco","orcid":"0000-0001-8388-4304","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264033,"name":"Ming‐an Sun","orcid":"0000-0002-4661-3027","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264034,"name":"Melania Bruno","orcid":"0000-0002-8401-7744","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264035,"name":"Matthew Tinkham","orcid":"0000-0002-9765-8567","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264036,"name":"Don Hoang","orcid":"0000-0003-1542-1150","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264037,"name":"Apratim Mitra","orcid":"0000-0003-3279-0054","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":265475,"name":"Sherry Ralls","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264038,"name":"Didier Trono","orcid":"0000-0002-3383-0401","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258781,"name":"Todd S. Macfarlan","orcid":"0000-0003-2495-9809","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264031,"name":"Gernot Wolf","orcid":"0000-0002-3943-8662","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":56,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T20:42:26.843314Z","pmid":"32479262","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}