RAD51 is a member of the RAD51 protein family. RAD51 family members are highly similar to bacterial RecA and Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad51, and are known to be involved in the homologous recombination and repair of DNA. This protein can interact with the ssDNA-binding protein RPA and RAD52, and it is thought to play roles in homologous pairing and strand transfer of DNA. This protein is also found to interact with BRCA1 and BRCA2, which may be important for the cellular response to DNA damage. BRCA2 is shown to regulate both the intracellular localization and DNA-binding ability of this protein. Loss of these controls following BRCA2 inactivation may be a key event leading to genomic instability and tumorigenesis. Multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene.