Phylogenetic distance from man correlates with immunologic cross-reactivity among liver insulin receptors

The hepatic insulin receptors from evolutionarily diverse species were evaluated to determine their ability to bind human insulin and their immunologic cross-reactivity with the human insulin receptor. We found that the liver membranes of each species possessed insulin receptors with remarkably similar affinities for human insulin. An immunoassay specific for human insulin receptor showed that the amount of shared antigenic determinants differed widely among the species tested and in general decreased as the phylogenetic distance from man increased. These data suggest that the ability to bind insulin has been highly conserved during evolution despite considerable variation in the primary structure of the insulin receptor.