p66 alpha: Proteins and Enzymes

Methylation of cytosine at CpG dinucleotides is a common feature of many higher eukaryotic genomes (1-3). Increasing evidence indicates that recruitement of histone deacetylase complexes by methyl-CpG-binding proteins (MeCP) is a major mechanism of methylated DNA silencing. P66, a zinc finger-containing protein is one of the components of the MeCP1 complex (4). P66 and p68, the two components of MeCP1 are different forms of the same zinc finger-containing protein and are conserved from C.elegans to humans. Homologs of p66 from different organisms revealed two highly conserved regions, CR1 and CR2. While CR1 is involved in the association of p66 with other MeCP1 components, CR2 plays an important role in targeting p66 and MBD3 to specific loci (4).