A group of small secreted proteins known as the TAFA family consists of five highly homologous genes: TAFA1, TAFA2, TAFA3, TAFA4 and TAFA5. Members of the TAFA family contain conserved cysteine residues at fixed positions and are highly expressed in brain. The TAFA family may be distantly related to a member of the CC-chemokine family known as MIP-1A, and have been postulated to regulate nervous and immune cells of the brain as neurokines or chemokines. TAFA1 [family with sequence similarity 19 (chemokine (C-C motif)-like), member A1], also known as chemokine-like protein TAFA-1, protein FAM19A1 TAFA-1 or FAM19A1, is a 19 amino acid brain specific protein belonging to the FAM19/TAFA family. TAFA1 is a secreted protein and is encoded by a gene mapping to human chromosome 3, which houses over 1,100 genes, including a chemokine receptor (CKR) gene cluster and a variety of human cancer-related gene loci.