The protein encoded by this gene shares similarity with Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad52, a protein important for DNA double-strand break repair and homologous recombination. This gene product was shown to bind single-stranded DNA ends, and mediate the DNA-DNA interaction necessary for the annealing of complementary DNA strands. It was also found to interact with DNA recombination protein RAD51, which suggested its role in RAD51 related DNA recombination and repair. A pseudogene of this gene is present on chromosome 2. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. Additional alternatively spliced transcript variants of this gene have been described, but their full-length nature is not known. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2014]