L-fucose is a key sugar in glycoproteins and other complex carbohydrates since it may be involved in many of the functional roles of these macromolecules, such as in cell-cell recognition. The fucosyl donor for these fucosylated oligosaccharides is GDP-beta-L-fucose. There are two alternate pathways for the biosynthesis of GDP-fucose; the major pathway converts GDP-alpha-D-mannose to GDP-beta-L-fucose. The protein encoded by this gene participates in an alternate pathway that is present in certain mammalian tissues, such as liver and kidney, and appears to function as a salvage pathway to reutilize L-fucose arising from the turnover of glycoproteins and glycolipids. This pathway involves the phosphorylation of L-fucose to form beta-L-fucose-1-phosphate, and then condensation of the beta-L-fucose-1-phosphate with GTP by fucose-1-phosphate guanylyltransferase to form GDP-beta-L-fucose. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. Read-through transcription also exists between this gene and the neighboring downstream TNNI3 interacting kinase (TNNI3K) gene. [provided by RefSeq, Dec 2010]