tRNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase is an

enzyme An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

that in humans is encoded by the ''TRDMT1''

gene In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

. CpG methylation is an epigenetic modification that is important for embryonic development, imprinting, and X-chromosome inactivation. Studies in mice have demonstrated that DNA methylation is required for mammalian development. This gene encodes a protein with similarity to DNA methyltransferases, but this protein does not display methyltransferase activity. The protein strongly binds DNA, suggesting that it may mark specific sequences in the genome. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms. It has been shown that human DNMT2 does not methylate DNA but instead methylates cytosine 38 in the anticodon loop of aspartic acid transfer RNA ( tRNA(Asp)).

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Further reading