Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

PRL

Prolactin

Also known as: PRL_HUMAN

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

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
P01236
Gene
PRL
Ensembl
ENSG00000172179
Chromosome
6
Canonical length
227 aa
Protein class
Cancer-related genes, Plasma proteins, Predicted secreted proteins
Secretome location
Secreted to blood

OverviewNCBI Gene

This gene encodes the anterior pituitary hormone prolactin. This secreted hormone is a growth regulator for many tissues, including cells of the immune system. It may also play a role in cell survival by suppressing apoptosis, and it is essential for lactation. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants that encode the same protein. [provided by RefSeq, Aug 2011]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

227 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>P01236|PRL
     1  MNIKGSPWKG SLLLLLVSNL LLCQSVAPLP ICPGGAARCQ VTLRDLFDRA VVLSHYIHNL
    61  SSEMFSEFDK RYTHGRGFIT KAINSCHTSS LATPEDKEQA QQMNQKDFLS LIVSILRSWN
   121  EPLYHLVTEV RGMQEAPEAI LSKAVEIEEQ TKRLLEGMEL IVSQVHPETK ENEIYPVWSG
   181  LPSLQMADEE SRLSAYYNLL HCLRRDSHKI DNYLKLLKCR IIHNNNC

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against PRL 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)
0.35
Highest tissue expression
58,561 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • pituitary gland: 58,561 nTPM
  • placenta: 34 nTPM
  • retina: 31 nTPM
  • stomach: 27 nTPM
  • cerebellum: 26 nTPM
  • thyroid gland: 21 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • lactotrophs: 22,782 nCPM
  • pituitary stem cells: 1,127 nCPM
  • corticotrophs: 878 nCPM
  • gonadotrophs: 400 nCPM
  • somatotrophs: 383 nCPM
  • thyrotrophs: 201 nCPM

Immune cell

  • naive CD8 T-cell: 0.2 nTPM
  • non-classical monocyte: 0.2 nTPM
  • classical monocyte: 0.1 nTPM
  • memory CD8 T-cell: 0.1 nTPM
  • total PBMC: 0.1 nTPM
  • basophil: 0 nTPM

Brain region

  • pons: 2.6 nTPM
  • thalamus: 2.6 nTPM
  • medulla oblongata: 2.3 nTPM
  • midbrain: 1.7 nTPM
  • cerebellum: 1.5 nTPM
  • amygdala: 0.9 nTPM

DiseaseUniProt · ClinVar · IEDB · PubMed

Four sources answering four different questions about PRL.

Disease | ImmuneIEDB

Conditions an epitope on PRL was assayed in.

Disease | AutoantibodyPubMed

Conditions in which antibodies against PRL are reported. Each links to that disease's full target list.

Showing 2 of 4 — disease pages carrying at least 10 antigens.

ReferencesPubMed · IEDB

Publications for PRL from three distinct lines of evidence, kept separate because they answer different questions: whether antibodies are directed at the protein, whether a B-cell epitope has been mapped on it, and whether a T-cell epitope has. Each is labelled with its source.

Reference: AutoantibodyPubMed

51 publications

Show 20 more of 51 total

Reference: T cellIEDB

1 publication

Sources: PubMed — antigen-level antibody evidence from a custom retrieval. Records matching a controlled set of autoantibody terms (the MeSH descriptors Autoantibodies and Autoantigens, with title and abstract term variants) were obtained through NCBI E-utilities, and their titles and abstracts parsed for constructions that direct an antibody at a named protein rather than for co-occurrence. Captured names were resolved against UniProt nomenclature and each antigen adjudicated individually against the source text. IEDB — curated epitope assays from the Immune Epitope Database (Vita et al., Nucleic Acids Research 2019). Bibliographic records from PubMed and MeSH, U.S. National Library of Medicine; citation metrics from NIH iCite (Hutchins et al., PLoS Biology 2016). Titles link to PubMed; abstracts are not reproduced here. The NLM does not endorse this analysis.

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)
1.42
gnomAD pLI
0
gnomAD missense Z
0.82
DepMap mean gene effect
0.05
DepMap dependency class
selective

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

InteractionsUniProt · HPA

Protein binding partners of PRL in the human serome: UniProt-annotated complex subunits plus reported interactors. Each links to its own Seroatlas record.

Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis

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

PRL is annotated as secreted, so native PRL 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 PRL as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/PRL. 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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