Background：

The protein encoded by this gene is T-cell receptor zeta， which together with T-cell receptor alpha/beta and gamma/delta heterodimers， and with CD3-gamma， -delta and -epsilon， forms the T-cell receptor-CD3 complex. The zeta chain plays an important role in coupling antigen recognition to several intracellular signal-transduction pathways. Low expression of the antigen results in impaired immune response. Two alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding distinct isoforms have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq， Jul 2008]