The family of Heterochromatin Protein 1 (HP1) ("Chromobox Homolog", CBX) are highly conserved adapter proteins, which have important functions in the cell nucleus. These functions include gene repression by heterochromatin formation, transcriptional activation, regulation of binding of cohesion complexes to centromere, sequesteration of genes to nuclear periphery, transcriptional arrest, maintenance of heterochromatin integrity, gene repression at single nucleosome level and gene repression by heterochromatization of euchromatin.Three different paralogs of HP1 are found in mammals, HP1α, HP1βand HP1γ.
