Aquaporin 6, kidney specific is a protein in humans that is encoded by the AQP6 gene. The aquaporins (AQPs) are a family of water-transporting proteins that facilitate osmotically driven water movement across cell plasma membranes. Among the seven human aquaporins cloned to date (AQPs 0-6), genes encoding the four most closely related aquaporins (AQP0, AQP2, AQP5, and AQP6) have been mapped to chromosome band 12q13, suggesting an aquaporin family gene cluster at this locus. Unlike other aquaporins, AQP6 functions not as a water channel but as an anion-selective channel. Single-channel analyses have shown AQP6 to flicker rapidly between closed and open status.