Interleukin 26

Interleukin 26
Identifiers
Symbols	IL26 ; AK155; IL-26
External IDs	OMIM: 605679 HomoloGene: 81862 GeneCards: IL26 Gene
Gene ontology Molecular function • cytokine activity Cellular component • extracellular space • cytosol Biological process • inflammatory response • immune response • cell-cell signaling • positive regulation of stress-activated MAPK cascade • positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter • positive regulation of JAK-STAT cascade • negative regulation of epithelial cell proliferation • positive regulation of cytokine secretion • positive regulation of protein kinase B signaling • positive regulation of ERK1 and ERK2 cascade Sources: Amigo / QuickGO
Orthologs
Species	Human	Mouse
Entrez	55801	n/a
Ensembl	ENSG00000111536	n/a
UniProt	Q9NPH9	n/a
RefSeq (mRNA)	NM_018402	n/a
RefSeq (protein)	NP_060872	n/a
Location (UCSC)	Chr 12: 68.2 – 68.23 Mb	n/a
PubMed search	[1]	n/a

Interleukin-26 (IL-26) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the IL26 gene.

IL-26 is a 171-amino acid protein, which is similar in amino acid sequence to interleukin 10. It was originally called AK155 and is composed of a signal sequence, 6 helices, and 4 conserved cysteine residues. IL-26 is expressed in certain herpesvirus-transformed T cells but not in primary stimulated T cells. IL-26 signals through a receptor complex comprising two distinct proteins called IL-20 receptor 1 and IL-10 receptor 2. By signaling through this receptor complex, IL-26 induces rapid phosphorylation of the transcription factors STAT1 and STAT3, which enhance IL-10 and IL-8 secretion and as expression of the CD54 molecule on the surface of epithelial cells.