Since MeCP2 is relatively highly expressed in neurons and since it has been associated with repression of genes adjacent to methylated CpG regions, it is conceivable that the regulation of MeCP2 may serve to underlie global effects of ethanol. More importantly, if ethanol causes slight changes in methylation of regulatory sequences controlling MeCP2, and this leads to a reduction in MeCP2 activity, there is a possibility of at least some severity of symptoms consistent with MeCP2 knockdown, such as developmental delay, autism, and related disorders (Hulbert, Jiang 2016). Interestingly, other epigenetic regulators such as DNMT1 and DNMT3A have also been found to be regulated by alcohol exposure (Tyler, Allan 2014), suggesting the presence of a direct mechanistic link between alcohol and epigenetic regulation.
