Required for normal vault structure. Vaults are multi-subunit structures that may act as scaffolds for proteins involved in signal transduction. Vaults may also play a role in nucleo-cytoplasmic transport (By similarity). The vault ribonucleoprotein particle is a huge (400 A x 670 A) cage structure of 12.9 MDa. It consists of a dimer of half-vaults, with each half-vault comprising 39 identical major vault protein (MVP) chains, PARP4 and one or more vault RNAs (vRNAs). Expressed in embryos, tube feet and coelomocytes (at protein level). Not expressed in sperm cells (at protein level). Highly and constitutively expressed throughout development. However, the ratio of soluble to insoluble protein changes during embryogenesis. Additionally, the distribution changes from a largely cytoplasmic distribution in the cleavage stage embryo to a predominantly nuclear and/or perinuclear location at blastula and gastrula stages.