Protein / target
Interleukin-18
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Interleukin-18 receptor binding
Strongest disease association
Smoking initiation
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
Pro-inflammatory cytokine primarily involved in epithelial barrier repair, polarized T-helper 1 (Th1) cell and natural killer (NK) cell immune responses.
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Pro-inflammatory cytokine primarily involved in epithelial barrier repair, polarized T-helper 1 (Th1) cell and natural killer (NK) cell immune responses (PubMed:10653850). Upon binding to IL18R1 and IL18RAP, forms a signaling ternary complex which activates NF-kappa-B, triggering synthesis of inflammatory mediators (PubMed:14528293, PubMed:25500532, PubMed:37993714). Synergizes with IL12/interleukin-12 to induce IFNG synthesis from T-helper 1 (Th1) cells and natural killer (NK) cells (PubMed:10653850). Involved in transduction of inflammation downstream of pyroptosis: its mature form is specifically released in the extracellular milieu by passing through the gasdermin-D (GSDMD) pore (PubMed:33883744)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (42)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Ccytosol
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- Fcytokine activity
- Finterleukin-18 receptor binding
- Pangiogenesis
- Pcell-cell signaling
- Pcellular response to lipopolysaccharide
- Pcholesterol homeostasis
- Pcytokine-mediated signaling pathway
- Pdefense response to Gram-positive bacterium
- Pestablishment of skin barrier
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
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Lipid & lipoprotein metabolism
- ·cholesterol homeostasis
- ·triglyceride homeostasis
Immune signalling
- ·Pro-inflammatory cytokine primarily involved in epithelial barrier repair, polarized T-h…
- ·cytokine activity
- ·interleukin-18 receptor binding
- ·cytokine-mediated signaling pathway
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 IL18
Gene-level evidence surfaced through the gene IL18that 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.
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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
3 compounds recorded · 3 in clinical development
View all recorded compounds (3)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
Antibodies — Strong
Protein degraders — Emerging
Other modalities — Strong
View underlying tractability evidence (7)Hide
Raw Open Targets tractability assessment buckets, by modality.
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.