Helicase, Lymphoid Specific (HELLS)

HELLS encodes a lymphoid-specific helicase. Other helicases function in processes involving DNA strand separation, including replication, repair, recombination, and transcription. This protein is thought to be involved with cellular proliferation and may play a role in leukemogenesis. Alternatively spliced transcript variants have been described, but their biological validity has not been determined.

DNA helicases play a role in a number of processes involving DNA strand separation, including replication, repair, recombination, and transcription. human HELLS is expressed in testis and thymus, 2 tissues that are highly active in DNA recombination.the mouse Hells gene contains at least 18 exons and spans more than 26.6 kb.