Emerging roles for insulin-like growth factor binding protein like protein 1

摘要

Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) mediate diverse cellular processesin various tissues, including the central nervous system (CNS)and thus require robust and delicate regulatory mechanisms. Itis now known that IGF signaling is regulated by a superfamily ofIGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) which share significant sequencehomology and are secreted to the extracellular environment tobind IGF (Nguyen et al., 2013). Currently, there are 6 known IGFBPsand 10 IGFBP related proteins. A new member of the IGFBPsuperfamily, IGFBP like protein 1 (IGFBPL1), was then identifiedand shown to have tumor suppressor like properties (Smith et al.,2007). Since then, little has been reported about the physiologicalroles of IGFBPL1. Recently, IGFBPL1 was found to be criticallyinvolved in mediating IGF-1 signaling to control CNS axon growthand regeneration (Guo et al., 2018). The study has uncovered a newsignaling loop in the regulation of the pleiotropic functions of IGF-1 and presents a possible novel pharmacological manipulation forpromoting nerve regeneration and repair.