Insulin gene enhancer protein ISL-1 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...

 that in humans is encoded by the ISL1 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...

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Interactions

ISL1 has been shown to interact

Protein-protein interaction

Protein–protein interactions occur when two or more proteins bind together, often to carry out their biological function. Many of the most important molecular processes in the cell such as DNA replication are carried out by large molecular machines that are built from a large number of protein...

 with Estrogen receptor alpha

Estrogen receptor alpha

Estrogen receptor alpha , also known as NR3A1 , is a nuclear receptor that is activated by the sex hormone estrogen...

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Role in cardiac development

ISL1 is a marker for cardiac progenitors of the secondary heart field (SHF) which includes the right ventricle and the outflow tract. It also has a biological function as shown in Isl1 knockout mice which have a severely deformed heart. More recently it has been defined as a marker for a cardiac progenitor cell lineage that is capable of differentiating into all 3 major cell types of the heart: Cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle and endothelial cell lineages.

Further reading