Background：

The protein encoded by this gene is a member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) ligand family. This protein is a ligand for TNFRSF17/BCMA， a member of the TNF receptor family. This protein and its receptor are both found to be important for B cell development. In vitro experiments suggested that this protein may be able to induce apoptosis through its interaction with other TNF receptor family proteins such as TNFRSF6/FAS and TNFRSF14/HVEM. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. Some transcripts that skip the last exon of the upstream gene (TNFSF12) and continue into the second exon of this gene have been identified; such read-through transcripts are contained in GeneID 407977， TNFSF12-TNFSF13.