Methyl CpG Binding Domain Protein 1 (MBD1)

MBD1 binds to a variety of methylated sequences, and appears to mediate repression of gene expression. It has been shown to play a role in chromatin modification through interaction with the histone H3K9 methyltransferase SETDB1. H3K9 is a repressive modification. DNA methylation is the major modification of eukaryotic genomes and plays an essential role in mammalian development. Human proteins MECP2, MBD1, MBD2, MBD3, and MBD4 comprise a family of nuclear proteins related by the presence in each of a methyl-CpG binding domain. Five transcript variants of the MBD1 are generated by alternative splicing resulting in protein isoforms that contain one MBD domain, two to three cysteine-rich  domains, and some differences in the COOH terminus.