Histones play a critical role in transcriptional regulation, cell cycle progression, and developmental events. Histone acetylation/deacetylation alters chromosome structure and affects transcription factor access to DNA. The protein encoded by this gene belongs to class I of the histone deacetylase family. It catalyzes the deacetylation of lysine residues in the histone N-terminal tails and represses transcription in large multiprotein complexes with transcriptional co-repressors. Multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq, Oct 2009].