The zinc finger and BTB domain containing 16 (Zbtb16) gene was first described in humans in 1993, where its encoded protein was found to be fused in-frame with the retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARα) in a patient diagnosed with a rare form of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) with a reciprocal chromosomal translocation t(11;17). This evidence concerns the gene ZBTB16 and acute promyelocytic leukemia.