This gene encodes an enzyme that belongs to a conserved family of serine/threonine protein kinases. Members of this dual specificity kinase family are thought to function in the regulation of cell differentiation and proliferation, survival, and in development. Alternate 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, Aug 2013].