Hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (HGF/SF) is a paracrine cellular growth, motility and morphogenic factor. It is secreted by mesenchymal cells and targets and acts primarily upon epithelial cells and endothelial cells, but also acts on haemopoietic progenitor cells. It has been shown to have a major role in embryonic organ development, in adult organ regeneration and in wound healing. This gene encodes a transmembrane protein with two extracellular Kunitz domains that inhibits a variety of serine proteases. The protein inhibits HGF activator which prevents the formation of active hepatocyte growth factor. This gene is a putative tumor suppressor, and mutations in this gene result in congenital sodium diarrhea. Multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq].
HGF is a potent mitogen for mature parenchymal hepatocyte cells, seems to be an hepatotrophic factor, and acts as growth factor for a broad spectrum of tissues and cell types. It has no detectable protease activity.