Insulin-like growth factor binding protein, acid labile subunit, also known as IGFALS, is a protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 which in humans is encoded by the IGFALS gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

.

Function

The protein encoded by this gene is a serum protein that binds insulin-like growth factor

Insulin-like growth factor

The insulin-like growth factors are proteins with high sequence similarity to insulin. IGFs are part of a complex system that cells use to communicate with their physiologic environment...

s, increasing their half-life and their vascular localization. Production of the encoded protein, which contains twenty leucine-rich repeat

Leucine-rich repeat

A leucine-rich repeat is a protein structural motif that forms an α/β horseshoe fold. It is composed of repeating 20–30 amino acid stretches that are unusually rich in the hydrophobic amino acid leucine...

s, is stimulated by growth hormone. Three transcript variants encoding two different isoforms have been found for this gene.

Clinical significance

Defects in this gene are a cause of acid-labile subunit deficiency, which maifests itself in a delayed and slow puberty.

Further reading