This gene encodes a mitochondrially-localized protein that has sequence similarity to prokaryotic beta-lactamases. Many of the residues responsible for beta-lactamase activity are not conserved in this protein, suggesting it may have a different enzymatic function. Increased expression of the related mouse gene was found to be associated with obesity. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants encoding different protein isoforms. [provided by RefSeq, Dec 2013]