This gene is a member of the family with sequence similarity 3 (FAM3) family and encodes a secreted protein with a GG domain. A change in expression of this protein has been noted in pancreatic cancer-derived cells. Alternate transcriptional splice variants which encode the same protein have been characterized.[6] FAM3C functions and expression also were studied in mammalian brains[7][8] which shown that a reduced FAM3C level associated to the onset of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD), which highlighted FAM3C as a promising therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, level of FAM3C was claimed to be a biomarker for AD together with saposin D.[9]
^"Human PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
^"Mouse PubMed Reference:". National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
^Zhu Y, Xu G, Patel A, McLaughlin MM, Silverman C, Knecht K, Sweitzer S, Li X, McDonnell P, Mirabile R, Zimmerman D, Boyce R, Tierney LA, Hu E, Livi GP, Wolf B, Abdel-Meguid SS, Rose GD, Aurora R, Hensley P, Briggs M, Young PR (August 2002). "Cloning, expression, and initial characterization of a novel cytokine-like gene family". Genomics. 80 (2): 144–50. doi:10.1006/geno.2002.6816. PMID12160727.
^US 7993868, Davies, Huw Alun; Blennow, Kaj & McGuire, James Norton, "Saposin D and FAM3C are biomarkers for alzheimer's disease", published 9 Aug 2011
Guo J, Cheng H, Zhao S, Yu L (January 2006). "GG: a domain involved in phage LTF apparatus and implicated in human MEB and non-syndromic hearing loss diseases". FEBS Letters. 580 (2): 581–4. doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2005.12.076. PMID16406369. S2CID1013478.