组蛋白在转录调控、细胞周期进展和发育事件中起着关键作用。组蛋白乙酰化/去乙酰化改变染色体结构并影响转录因子对dna的获取。该基因编码的蛋白质与组蛋白脱乙酰酶家族成员具有序列同源性。该基因与小鼠hdac7基因同源，其蛋白通过转录辅压子smrt介导抑制作用。另外，已经发现该基因编码不同亚型的剪接转录变体[由RefSeq提供，2008年7月]
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 has sequence homology to members of the histone deacetylase family. This gene is orthologous to mouse HDAC7 gene whose protein promotes repression mediated via the transcriptional corepressor SMRT. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]