Nrf3, which belongs to the CNC-bZIP (cap"n"collarbasic leucine zipper) family, is a key transmembrane-bound transcription factor. Compared with the most studied family members Nrf1 and Nrf2, there are still too many unknowns about the biological roles of Nrf3. In recent years, combined with the application of multi omics technology, the biological functions of Nrf3 has been gradually revealed. Nrf3 plays an important role in tissues development and function specialization, intracellular redox homeostasis, protein homeostasis, lipid metabolism homeostasis, energy metabolism, innate immune regulation and so on. With the application of knockout mouse model and clinical research, Nrf3 is found to be involved in physiological and pathological processes such as glucose metabolism, cholesterol metabolism, protein modification, endoplasmic reticulum stress, chronic inflammation and neurodegeneration, especially mediating the reprogramming of glucose and lipid metabolism in cancer development. In order to better understand the function of Nrf3, a briefly review concentrating on its molecular structure and biological functions is demonstrated in this work.