A novel functional gene P12 was isolated from neural stem cells cultured in differentiation medium. The fully length cDNA of P12 gene was cloned and sequenced. Result showed that it contains an open reading frame encoding a protein of 291 amino acids. Further, this gene was transferred into neural stem cell. Functional analysis suggests that the expression of p12 protein is closely correlated with differentiation of neural dendrite configuration. In addition, to obtain encoding protein, P12 sequence was also expressed in Pichia pastoris yeast.