Zinc Finger, DBF-Type Containing Protein 2 (ZDBF2)

In mammals, both the maternal and paternal genomes are necessary for normal embryogenesis due to parent-specific epigenetic modification of the genome during gametogenesis, which leads to non-equivalent expression of imprinted genes from the maternal and paternal alleles.

Zdbf2 was paternally expressed in various embryonic and adult tissues, except for the placenta and adult testis, which showed biallelic expression of the gene. A differentially methylated region (DMR) at 10 kb upstream of exon 1 of the Zdbf2 gene and this differential methylation was derived from the germline. Human homolog (ZDBF2) of the mouse Zdbf2 gene showed paternal allele-specific expression in human lymphocytes but not in the human placenta.