INHA

INHA
Identifiers
Aliases INHA, inhibin alpha subunit, inhibin subunit alpha
External IDs OMIM: 147380 MGI: 96569 HomoloGene: 1652 GeneCards: INHA
Orthologs
Species Human Mouse
Entrez
Ensembl
UniProt
RefSeq (mRNA)

NM_002191

NM_010564
NM_001329843

RefSeq (protein)

NP_002182

NP_001316772
NP_034694

Location (UCSC) Chr 2: 219.57 – 219.58 Mb Chr 1: 75.48 – 75.49 Mb
PubMed search
Wikidata
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Inhibin, alpha, also known as INHA, is a protein which in humans is encoded by the INHA gene.

Function

The inhibin alpha subunit joins either the beta A or beta B subunit to form a pituitary FSH secretion inhibitor. Inhibin has been shown to regulate gonadal stromal cell proliferation negatively and to have tumour-suppressor activity. In addition, serum levels of inhibin have been shown to reflect the size of granulosa-cell tumors and can therefore be used as a marker for primary as well as recurrent disease.

However, in prostate cancer, expression of the inhibin alpha-subunit gene was suppressed and was not detectable in poorly differentiated tumor cells. Furthermore, because expression in gonadal and various extragonadal tissues may vary severalfold in a tissue-specific fashion, it is proposed that inhibin may be both a growth/differentiation factor and a hormone.

See also