Mature single-positive (CD4+ or CD8+) T lymphocytes enter a 'resting' state in which they are proliferatively quiescent and relatively resistant to apoptosis. Anderson et al. (1995) identified and characterized the gene for a novel zinc finger transcription factor that they symbolized LKLF for 'lung Kruppel-like factor.'
Using 5-prime and 3-prime RACE on a melted GC-rich DNA fragment similar to mouse Lklf, Kozyrev et al. (1999) isolated a cDNA encoding KLF2, which they termed LKLF. Sequence analysis predicted that the 355-amino acid LKLF protein, which is 87% identical to the mouse protein, has N-terminal proline-rich repeats, a putative activation domain, a potential nuclear localization signal, and a C-terminal zinc finger domain.