RAD51 family members are highly similar to bacterial RecA and Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad51, which are known to be involved in the homologous recombination and repair of DNA.

This protein forms a complex with several other members of the RAD51 family, including RAD51L1, RAD51L2, and XRCC2.

The protein complex formed with this protein has been shown to catalyze homologous pairing between single- and double-stranded DNA, and is thought to play a role in the early stage of recombinant DNA repair.

Several alternatively spliced transcript variants of this gene have been described, but the biological validity of some of them has not been determined.

This article on a gene on human chromosome 17 is a stub.