Histone deacetylase I (HDAC1) works as one of the components in a nucleosome remodeling (NuRD) complex that consists of several proteins, including metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1). Since the protein-protein interaction of HDAC1 and MTA1 would appear to be important for both the integrity and functionality of the HDAC1 complex, the interruption of the HDAC1 and MTA1 interaction may be an efficient way to regulate the biological function of the HDAC1 complex. Based on this idea, a yeast two-hybrid system was constructed with HDAC1 and MTA1 expressing vectors in the DNA binding and activation domains, respectively. To verify the efficiency of the assay system, 3,500 microbial metabolite libraries were tested using the paper disc method, and KB0699 was found to inhibit the HDAC1 and MTA1 interaction without any toxicity to the wild-type yeast. Furthermore, KB0699 blocked the interaction of HDAC1 and MTA1 in an in vitro GST pull down assay and induced morphological changes in B16/BL6 melanoma cells, indicating the interruption of the HDAC1 complex function. Accordingly, these results demonstrated that the yeast assay strain developed in this study could be a valuable tool for the isolation of a HDAC1 complex disruptor.