This gene was originally isolated by subtractive hybridization of cDNAs expressed in atherosclerotic plaques with a thrombus, and was found to be expressed only in vascular smooth muscle cells. However, a shorter splice variant was found to be more ubiquitously expressed. This protein is suggested to play a role in the development of atherosclerosis. Studies in mice suggest that it may also function as a GC-rich promoter-specific trans-activating transcription factor. Several alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been described for this gene. [provided by RefSeq, Feb 2011].