Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) is the binding of a zinc finger protein (DNA binding domain) to a FOK1 enzyme (DNA cleaving domain) to target a specific DNA sequence. Zinc Fingers bind to an amino acid (three bases) and the FOK1 enzyme heterodimerizes to cleave the DNA. A potential application is the use of ZFNs to target the CCR5 gene in HIV patients to prevent the virus from entering a cell.
