This gene is involved in the first step in glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchor biosynthesis. The GPI-anchor is a glycolipid found on many blood cells and serves to anchor proteins to the cell surface. This gene encodes a N-acetylglucosaminyl transferase component that is part of the complex that catalyzes transfer of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) from UDP-GlcNAc to phosphatidylinositol (PI). Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq, Jun 2012].