Epiregulin (EREG)

Epiregulin is a member of the epidermal growth factor family.Toyoda et al. (1995) purified a member of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) family, termed epiregulin. Epiregulin functions as a tumor growth-inhibitory factor inducing morphologic changes in HeLa cells. Purified mouse epiregulin contains 46 amino acid residues with 24 to 50% sequence identity with other members of the EGF family and exhibits low affinity for the EGF receptor on human epidermoid carcinoma A431 cells. Toyoda et al. (1997) cloned and expressed the human epiregulin gene. Their results showed that, although other members of the EGF family are ubiquitously expressed in normal tissues, the level of expression of epiregulin was extremely low but clearly detectable in macrophages and placenta and was high in carcinoma cells.