Acid phosphatases are enzymes capable of hydrolyzing orthophosphoric acid esters in an acid medium. This gene is up-regulated by androgens and is down-regulated by estrogens in the prostate cancer cell line. This gene exhibits a lower level of expression in testicular cancer tissues than in normal tissues. The protein encoded by this gene has structural similarity to prostatic and lysosomal acid phosphatases. Alternatively spliced transcript variants have been described, but their biological validity has not been determined. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]