“…CCCH-type zinc finger proteins belong to a superfamily divided into nine classes (C2H2, C8, C6, C3HC4, C2HC, C2HC5, C4, C4HC3, and CCCH) according to the numbers of conserved Cys (C) and His (H) residues and the spacing between these conserved residues (Berg and Shi, 1996;Takatsuji, 1998). A CCCH-type zinc finger protein usually contains one or more tandemly arranged zinc-binding motifs characterized by three Cys residues followed by one His, with the characteristics CX 5-14 -CX 4-5 -CX 3 -H (where X indicates any amino acid; Blackshear, 2002;Wang et al, 2008a). The CCCH-type zinc finger genes are widely present in eukaryotes (Anderson et al, 1993;Tabara et al, 1999;Carballo et al, 2000;Li et al, 2001;Gao et al, 2002;Kong et al, 2006;Guo et al, 2009), and there are at least 68 genes in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and 67 in rice (Oryza sativa; Wang et al, 2008a).…”