hepatocyte growth factor

Polypeptide mitogen originally shown to cause cell division in hepatocytes. In the liver, the main sources of HGF are non-parenchymal cells. It is now clear that HGF is a mitogen for a number of cell types and it is found in many cells outside the liver, including platelets. HGF is synthesized as a single chain precursor that is proteolytically cleaved to give a heavy chain (70 kD) and a light chain (30 kD) linked by a single disulphide bond. It contains multiple copies of the kringle domain. However, both the single chain precursor and the two-chain forms of HGF are biologically active and HGF is generally isolated as a mixture of the two forms. HGF also alters cell motility and is now known to be identical to scatter factor.