IL21

Chr 4q27

interleukin 21

Aliases:: Za11, IL-21
MANE:: ENST00000648588.1

OMIM: 605384 ↗NCBI: 59067 ↗Ensembl ↗

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Predicted protein structure

AlphaFold predicted structure

IL21 · Q9HBE4

v62025-08-01

Predicted Aligned Error matrix for IL21 — diagonal shows residue index, colour shows pairwise prediction confidence (lower is better) — Predicted Aligned Error

Mean pLDDT

83.4/ 100

Confident

162 residues

Confidence breakdown

Very high(≥ 90)56%
Confident(70–90)20%
Low(50–70)19%
Very low(< 50)5%

Open interactive 3D viewer

AlphaFold (Jumper et al., 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Clinical relevance (Genomics England PanelApp)

Diagnostic Grade (Green)

COVID-19 research
BIALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal
Infantile enterocolitis & monogenic inflammatory bowel disease
BIALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal
Primary immunodeficiency or monogenic inflammatory bowel disease
BIALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal

Disease associations (Open Targets)

Autosomal recessive early-onset inflammatory bowel disease
0.59
hypothyroidism
0.42
Crohn disease
0.41
psoriasis
0.39
asthma
0.39
celiac disease
0.38
psoriasis vulgaris
0.34
neurodegenerative disease
0.33
inflammatory bowel disease
0.29
myxedema
0.29

Score is the Open Targets composite evidence score (0-1). Higher = stronger gene-disease association.

Protein function (UniProt)

Interleukin-21

Cytokine with immunoregulatory activity. May promote the transition between innate and adaptive immunity. Induces the production of IgG(1) and IgG(3) in B-cells (By similarity). Implicated in the generation and maintenance of T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and the formation of germinal-centers. Together with IL6, control the early generation of Tfh cells and are critical for an effective antibody response to acute viral infection (By similarity). May play a role in proliferation and maturation of natural killer (NK) cells in synergy with IL15. May regulate proliferation of mature B- and T-cells in response to activating stimuli. In synergy with IL15 and IL18 stimulates interferon gamma production in T-cells and NK cells (PubMed:11081504, PubMed:15178704). During T-cell mediated immune response may inhibit dendritic cells (DC) activation and maturation (By similarity)