This gene encodes a member of the heat shock factor (HSF) family of transcriptional activators for heat shock proteins. This gene is a candidate gene for azoospermia, since it localizes to a region of chromosome Y that is sometimes deleted in infertile males. The genome has two identical copies of this gene within a palindromic region; this record represents the more telomeric copy. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants encoding distinct isoforms. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].