Protein / target
Insulin-like growth factor 1
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Insulin-like growth factor receptor binding
Strongest disease association
Microcephalic primordial dwarfism
Therapeutic position
Clinically advancing target
Research activity
Emerging research
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function overview
The insulin-like growth factors, isolated from plasma, are structurally and functionally related to insulin but have a much higher growth-promoting activity.
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The insulin-like growth factors, isolated from plasma, are structurally and functionally related to insulin but have a much higher growth-promoting activity. May be a physiological regulator of [1-14C]-2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) transport and glycogen synthesis in osteoblasts. Stimulates glucose transport in bone-derived osteoblastic (PyMS) cells and is effective at much lower concentrations than insulin, not only regarding glycogen and DNA synthesis but also with regard to enhancing glucose uptake. May play a role in synapse maturation (PubMed:21076856, PubMed:24132240). Ca(2+)-dependent exocytosis of IGF1 is required for sensory perception of smell in the olfactory bulb (By similarity). Acts as a ligand for IGF1R. Binds to the alpha subunit of IGF1R, leading to the activation of the intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity which autophosphorylates tyrosine residues in the beta subunit thus initiating a cascade of down-stream signaling events leading to activation of the PI3K-AKT/PKB and the Ras-MAPK pathways. Binds to integrins ITGAV:ITGB3 and ITGA6:ITGB4. Its binding to integrins and subsequent ternary complex formation with integrins and IGFR1 are essential for IGF1 signaling. Induces the phosphorylation and activation of IGFR1, MAPK3/ERK1, MAPK1/ERK2 and AKT1 (PubMed:19578119, PubMed:22351760, PubMed:23243309, PubMed:23696648). As part of the MAPK/ERK signaling pathway, acts as a negative regulator of apoptosis in cardiomyocytes via promotion of STUB1/CHIP-mediated ubiquitination and degradation of ICER-type isoforms of CREM (By similarity)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (85)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Calphav-beta3 integrin-IGF-1-IGF1R complex
- Cexocytic vesicle
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- Cglutamatergic synapse
- Cinsulin-like growth factor binding protein complex
- Cinsulin-like growth factor ternary complex
- Cneuronal dense core vesicle lumen
- Cplatelet alpha granule lumen
- Cpostsynapse
- Fgrowth factor activity
- Fhormone activity
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
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Synaptic signalling
- ·The insulin-like growth factors, isolated from plasma, are structurally and functionally…
- ·glutamatergic synapse
- ·postsynapse
- ·postsynaptic modulation of chemical synaptic transmission
Growth-factor signalling
- ·The insulin-like growth factors, isolated from plasma, are structurally and functionally…
- ·insulin-like growth factor ternary complex
- ·insulin-like growth factor receptor binding
- ·insulin-like growth factor receptor signaling pathway
Cell proliferation & survival
- ·cell population proliferation
- ·positive regulation of cell population proliferation
Cell migration
- ·positive regulation of cell migration
- ·positive regulation of smooth muscle cell migration
Kinase signalling
- ·The insulin-like growth factors, isolated from plasma, are structurally and functionally…
- ·protein kinase activator activity
- ·activation of protein kinase B activity
- ·positive regulation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B signal transduction
Transcriptional regulation
- ·negative regulation of gene expression
- ·positive regulation of DNA-templated transcription
- ·positive regulation of gene expression
- ·positive regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically, strongest evidence first. Disease associations are gene-level (via the gene that encodes this protein) and open into the full confidence synthesis; the development universe, tractability and safety annotations are target-level, from Open Targets.
Strongest disease associations · via encoding gene IGF1
Gene-level evidence surfaced through the gene IGF1that encodes this protein — not a direct protein–disease relationship. Ranked by Forefront's causal-directness weighting, so genetically- and clinically-evidenced diseases lead over ones that merely share the literature.
View evidence synthesis (4)Hide
This ranking differs from Open Targets' own: re-weighting moves genetically-evidenced diseases above more heavily co-mentioned ones. The evidence agreement range shows how closely the independent evidence families agree — it is not a statistical confidence interval, and nothing here is fitted to outcome data. Derived from Open Targets evidence types under Forefront weighting; the per-type scores above show the calculation.
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Drug development
2 compounds recorded · 2 in clinical development
View all recorded compounds (2)Hide
Open Targets known-drugs universe. Drug name and highest clinical stage only — the disease relationship is NOT read from this slice (it carries trial-context noise); approved indications come from the canonical graph above.
Tractability
Small molecules — Emerging
Antibodies — Strong
Protein degraders — Emerging
View underlying tractability evidence (7)Hide
Raw Open Targets tractability assessment buckets, by modality.
Safety-related annotations
Terms indexed against this target in Open Targets' safety data, with their datasource. These are annotations, not causal claims: the direction of effect (whether activation or inhibition is implicated), species and evidence strength are not captured here, so an entry does not mean that modulating this target is known to cause that condition.
Research activity
Papers linked directly to this protein. This is the protein's own literature — descriptor-derived papers are kept separate below.
Most cited
Recent
Europe PMC papers linked directly to this protein.