The orphan insulin receptor-related receptor (IRR) encoded by gene is the third member of the insulin receptor family, also including the insulin receptor (IR) and the insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R). IRR is the extracellular alkaline medium sensor. In mice, is expressed only in small populations of cells in specific tissues, which contain extracorporeal liquids of extreme pH. In particular, IRR regulates the metabolic bicarbonate excess in the kidney. In contrast, the role of IRR during embryogenesis is unknown, although is highly expressed in frog embryos. Here, we examined the function during the early development by the morpholino-induced knockdown. We demonstrated that downregulation leads to development retardation, which can be restored by the incubation of embryos in an alkaline medium. Using bulk RNA-seq of embryos at the middle neurula stage, we showed that downregulation elicited a general shift of expression towards genes specifically expressed before and at the onset of gastrulation. At the same time, alkali treatment partially restored the expression of the neurula-specific genes. Thus, our results demonstrate the critical role of in the regulation of the early development rate in .