SRA1 is involved in transcriptional coactivation by steroid receptors. There is currently data suggesting this gene encodes both a non-coding RNA that functions as part of a ribonucleoprotein complex and a protein coding mRNA. Increased expression of both the transcript and the protein is associated with cancer.

SRA was selective for steroid hormone receptors and mediated transactivation via their N-terminal activation function. The authors provided functional and mechanistic evidence that SRA acts as an RNA transcript; transfected SRA, unlike other steroid receptor coregulators, functioned in the presence of cycloheximide, and SRA mutants containing multiple translational stop signals retained their ability to activate steroid receptor-dependent gene expression.