Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

INSL4

Early placenta insulin-like peptide

Also known as: EPIL, INSL4_HUMAN

Cross-references: UniProt · Ensembl · Human Protein Atlas · GeneCards · NCBI Gene

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
Q14641
Gene
INSL4
Ensembl
ENSG00000120211
Chromosome
9
Canonical length
139 aa
Protein class
Predicted secreted proteins
Subcellular location
Vesicles
Secretome location
Secreted to blood

OverviewNCBI Gene

INSL4 encodes the insulin-like 4 protein, a member of the insulin superfamily. INSL4 encodes a precursor that undergoes post-translational cleavage to produce 3 polypeptide chains, A-C, that form tertiary structures composed of either all three chains, or just the A and B chains. Expression of INSL4 products occurs within the early placental cytotrophoblast and syncytiotrophoblast. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

139 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>Q14641|INSL4
     1  MASLFRSYLP AIWLLLSQLL RESLAAELRG CGPRFGKHLL SYCPMPEKTF TTTPGGWLLE
    61  SGRPKEMVST SNNKDGQALG TTSEFIPNLS PELKKPLSEG QPSLKKIILS RKKRSGRHRF
   121  DPFCCEVICD DGTSVKLCT

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against INSL4 can act on the native protein depends on physical access: surface and secreted proteins are reachable by circulating antibodies, intracellular proteins usually are not.

Antibody reachability
Secreted
Secreted
Yes
Transmembrane segments
0
Mean surface accessibility (rSASA)
0.58
Highest tissue expression
15 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • placenta: 15 nTPM
  • epididymis: 1.4 nTPM
  • bone marrow: 0.3 nTPM
  • skin: 0.2 nTPM
  • appendix: 0.1 nTPM
  • lymph node: 0.1 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • syncytiotrophoblasts: 5,122 nCPM
  • cytotrophoblasts: 374 nCPM
  • migrating cytotrophoblasts: 98 nCPM
  • extravillous trophoblasts: 21 nCPM
  • hofbauer cells: 9.9 nCPM
  • decidual stromal cells: 4.6 nCPM

Immune cell

  • basophil: 0 nTPM
  • classical monocyte: 0 nTPM
  • eosinophil: 0 nTPM
  • gdT-cell: 0 nTPM
  • intermediate monocyte: 0 nTPM
  • MAIT T-cell: 0 nTPM

Brain region

  • white matter: 3 nTPM
  • cerebral cortex: 2.8 nTPM
  • basal ganglia: 2.4 nTPM
  • cerebellum: 2.4 nTPM
  • thalamus: 2.4 nTPM
  • medulla oblongata: 2.3 nTPM

Genetic constraint and essentialitygnomAD · DepMap

Does the body need this protein intact? Low LOEUF or a strong DepMap dependency means loss or blockade of the protein is likely to be felt.

gnomAD LOEUF (loss-of-function intolerance)
1.93
gnomAD pLI
0
gnomAD missense Z
-1.43
DepMap mean gene effect
0.11
DepMap dependency class
none

Cancer expressionTCGA

Across TCGA tumor cohorts, this protein is over-expressed in roughly 2% of surveyed tumor types (aggregate summary; per-cohort expression, alteration, and survival load in the interactive view).

OntologyGO

Biological processes

Molecular functions

Cellular components

Protein domainsUniProt · Pfam · InterPro

KeywordsUniProt

Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis

Seroatlas reads INSL4 as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against INSL4 could matter depends on whether native INSL4 is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.

INSL4 is annotated as secreted, so native INSL4 circulates and is directly accessible to antibodies. Secreted and cell-surface proteins are the autoantibody targets most likely to act like drugs, blocking or depleting the native protein.

Annotation status

The present source text does not explicitly label INSL4 as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/INSL4. Study-independent annotations aggregated from UniProt, Human Protein Atlas, PubMed, IEDB, Pfam, InterPro, Gene Ontology, AlphaFold, gnomAD, DepMap, ClinVar, TCGA. Catalog release seroatlas-reviewed-human-uniprot-20260313.

Seroatlas is the reference for exploring autoantibody and antibody serology at the human-protein level: the autoreactome and human serome, multiplex serology (HuProt, HuScan, VirScan, PhIP-Seq).

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