This gene contains two ankyrin repeat-encoding regions. Ankyrin repeats are tandemly repeated modules of about 33 amino acids described as L-shaped structures consisting of a beta-hairpin and two alpha-helices. Ankyrin repeats occur in a large number of functionally diverse proteins, mainly from eukaryotes, and are known to function as protein-protein interaction domains. Alternative splicing has been observed for this gene but the full-length nature of additional variants has not been determined. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]