Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF) is a lymphoid factor which promotes long-term maintenance of pluripotent embryonic stem cells by suppressing spontaneous differentiation. Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF) has a number of other functions including cholinergic neuron differentiation, bone and fat metabolism, mitogenesis of certain factor dependent cell lines and promotion of megakaryocyte production in vivo. Human and Mouse LIF exhibit a 78% identity in its amino acid sequence. Mouse LIF has a molecular mass of 20 kDa containing 181 amino acid residues.
