Protein / target
Interleukin-13
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Interleukin-13 receptor binding
Primary system
Immune system
Strongest disease association
asthma
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
2 approved · 5 in clinical development
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
Cytokine that plays important roles in allergic inflammation and immune response to parasite infection (PubMed:8096327, PubMed:8097324). Synergizes with IL2 in regulating interferon-gamma synthesis (PubMed:8096327). Stimulates B-cell proliferation, and activation of eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells (PubMed:7903680, PubMed:8759755). Plays an important role in controlling IL33 activity by modulating the production of transmembrane and soluble forms of interleukin-1 receptor-like 1/IL1RL1 (By similarity). Displays the capacity to antagonize Th1-driven proinflammatory immune response and downregulates synthesis of many proinflammatory cytokines including IL1, IL6, IL10, IL12 and TNF through a mechanism that partially involves suppression of NF-kappa-B (By similarity). Also functions on nonhematopoietic cells, including endothelial cells where it induces vascular cell adhesion protein 1/VCAM1, which is important in the recruitment of eosinophils (PubMed:8639787). Exerts its biological effects through its receptors which comprises the IL4R chain and the IL13RA1 chain, to activate JAK1 and TYK2, leading to the activation of STAT6 (PubMed:9013879). Aside from IL13RA1, another receptor IL13RA2 acts as a high affinity decoy for IL13 and mediates internalization and depletion of extracellular IL13 (PubMed:21622864). Induces inflammatory response in esophageal epithelium which results in a dysregulation of desmosome intercellular adhesion junctions, via down-regulation of DSG1 (PubMed:24220297)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (41)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Ccytoplasm
- Cexternal side of plasma membrane
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- Cplasma membrane
- Fcytokine activity
- Finterleukin-13 receptor binding
- Papoptotic process
- Pcell surface receptor signaling pathway via JAK-STAT
- Pcellular response to mechanical stimulus
- PERK1 and ERK2 cascade
- Pimmune response
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Immune signalling
- ·Cytokine that plays important roles in allergic inflammation and immune response to para…
- ·cytokine activity
- ·interleukin-13 receptor binding
- ·immune response
Transcriptional regulation
- ·positive regulation of gene expression
- ·positive regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
Apoptosis & cell death
- ·apoptotic process
- ·negative regulation of endothelial cell apoptotic process
Kinase signalling
- ·positive regulation of tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT protein
Cell adhesion
- ·Cytokine that plays important roles in allergic inflammation and immune response to para…
View underlying pathways (3)Hide underlying pathways
Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Interaction neighbourhood
Proteins with the strongest functional or physical association. Node size and line weight reflect STRING confidence; hover or select a partner to inspect one association.
Functional and physical associations from STRING v12.0. Only associations with this protein are drawn — partner-to-partner links are not part of this evidence.
Drugs targeting this protein
Whether each drug engages this protein directly or through a complex, and how many other targets are recorded for it. Direct binders with few recorded targets are listed first.
Interleukin-13 inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving atopic eczema, Eczematoid dermatitis, atopic eczema, ulcerative colitis
Interleukin-13 inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving Eczematoid dermatitis, atopic eczema, atopic eczema, asthma
ChEMBL mechanism, action type and target identity. Open Targets clinical status and indications.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically — disease associations, drugs in development, tractability and safety, from Open Targets.
Strongest genetic associations
Human genetic evidence — the most direct causal link between this target and a disease.
Highest-confidence therapeutic associations
Diseases where a drug acting on this target has already reached clinical development.
Highest overall evidence
Remaining associations by Open Targets' aggregated evidence score.
Show all associationsHide all associations
Open Targets ranks 1,388 associations for this target and we store the top 10 by aggregated score. The long tail is largely literature co-mention and RNA-expression evidence, not evidence that this target drives those diseases.
Known drugs · 7 total
Eczematoid dermatitis · atopic eczema · atopic eczema
asthma · ulcerative colitis
allergic asthma
allergic rhinitis · idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis · pulmonary fibrosis
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis · pulmonary fibrosis · systemic sclerosis
eosinophilic esophagitis · eosinophilic gastroenteritis · atopic eczema
atopic eczema · Eczematoid dermatitis · atopic eczema
Tractability
Safety liabilities
Clinical trials
Trials of drugs that target this protein — reached indirectly through those drugs, so a trial listed here studies the drug, not the protein.
Show remaining trials (24)Hide
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
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.
Forefront confidence
Our own weighting of the evidence behind each disease association. Human genetics and clinical evidence count for most; literature co-mention counts for little, because two entities sharing an abstract is not evidence that one drives the other.
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 underlying per-type scores are shown above so the calculation can be checked.
What's happening now
Recent activity around this target, drawn from one canonical event stream. Every item is reached through 2 drugs that target this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Ebglyss (EMA)
- New publicationEfficacy and Safety of Tralokinumab in Adolescents With Moderate to Severe Atopic Dermatitis: The Phase 3 ECZTRA 6 Randomized Clinical Trial.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Adtralza (EMA)
- New publicationTralokinumab for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis: results from two 52-week, randomized, double-blind, multicentre, placebo-controlled phase III trials (ECZTRA 1 and ECZTRA 2).
- New publicationEfficacy and Safety of Lebrikizumab, a High-Affinity Interleukin 13 Inhibitor, in Adults With Moderate to Severe Atopic Dermatitis: A Phase 2b Randomized Clinical Trial.
- New publicationTralokinumab for moderate-to-severe UC: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase IIa study.
Objective event titles are shown unmodified; the event kind and significance line are derived from structured fields. Forefront AttentionEvent stream aggregating Europe PMC Regulatory filings ClinicalTrials.gov.