This gene encodes the beta subunit of the karyopherin receptor complex which interacts with nuclear localization signals to target nuclear proteins to the nucleus. The karyopherin receptor complex is a heterodimer of an alpha subunit which recognizes the nuclear localization signal and a beta subunit which docks the complex at nucleoporins. Alternate splicing of this gene results in two transcript variants encoding different proteins. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].