Members of the protein-tyrosine phosphatase superfamilycooperate with protein kinases to regulate cell proliferation anddifferentiation. This superfamily is separated into two familiesbased on the substrate that is dephosphorylated. One family, thedual specificity phosphatases (DSPs) acts on both phosphotyrosineand phosphoserine/threonine residues. This gene encodes differentbut related DSP proteins through the use of non-overlapping openreading frames, alternate splicing, and presumed differenttranscription promoters. Expression of the distinct proteins fromthis gene has been found to be tissue specific and the proteins maybe involved in postnatal development of specific tissues. A proteinencoded by the upstream ORF was found in skeletal muscle, whereasthe encoded protein from the downstream ORF was found only intestis. In mouse, a similar pattern of expression was found.Multiple alternatively spliced transcript variants were described,but the full-length sequence of only some were determined.[provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].
