The encoded protein belongs to the class I family of tRNA synthetases, a class of enzymes that charge tRNAs with their cognate amino acids. The related human gene product is essential for the translation initiation of mRNAs. This gene has an overlapping 3 UTR tail-to-tail arrangement with an adjacent gene on the opposite strand that encodes an inhibitor of the CCAAT/enhancer-binding proteins DNA binding activity. This arrangement, conserved in human and mouse, may be involved in mRNA stability and possible functional and regulatory interaction of these adjacent overlapping genes. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants.
