Protein / target
Acetylcholinesterase
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Protein homodimerization activity
Primary system
Nervous system
Strongest disease association
Abnormality of the skeletal system
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
27 approved · 1 in clinical development
Research activity
Emerging research
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function
Hydrolyzes rapidly the acetylcholine neurotransmitter released into the synaptic cleft allowing to terminate the signal transduction at the neuromuscular junction. Role in neuronal apoptosis
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (32)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Cbasement membrane
- Ccell surface
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- CGolgi apparatus
- Cmembrane
- Cneuromuscular junction
- Cnucleus
- Cperinuclear region of cytoplasm
- Cplasma membrane
- Cside of membrane
- Csynapse
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Synaptic signalling
- ·Synapse
- ·synapse
- ·negative regulation of synaptic transmission, cholinergic
- ·synapse assembly
Cell adhesion
- ·cell adhesion
Metabolic enzyme activity
- ·amyloid precursor protein metabolic process
View underlying pathways (3)Hide underlying pathways
Concepts derived from UniProt GO Reactome — each badge above shows which sources supported that role.
Interaction neighbourhood
Proteins with the strongest functional or physical association. Node size and line weight reflect STRING confidence; hover or select a partner to inspect one association.
Functional and physical associations from STRING v12.0. Only associations with this protein are drawn — partner-to-partner links are not part of this evidence.
Drugs targeting this protein
Whether each drug engages this protein directly or through a complex, and how many other targets are recorded for it. Direct binders with few recorded targets are listed first.
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving glaucoma
ChEMBL mechanism, action type and target identity. Open Targets clinical status and indications.
Translational evidence
Why this target matters therapeutically — disease associations, drugs in development, tractability and safety, from Open Targets.
Strongest genetic associations
Human genetic evidence — the most direct causal link between this target and a disease.
Highest-confidence therapeutic associations
Diseases where a drug acting on this target has already reached clinical development.
Highest overall evidence
Remaining associations by Open Targets' aggregated evidence score.
Show all associationsHide all associations
Open Targets ranks 2,712 associations for this target and we store the top 10 by aggregated score. The long tail is largely literature co-mention and RNA-expression evidence, not evidence that this target drives those diseases.
Known drugs · 32 total
Mental deterioration · Alzheimer disease
Alzheimer disease · dementia · Alzheimer disease
myasthenia gravis · obstructive jaundice · Snoring
depressive disorder · major depressive disorder
Alzheimer disease · dementia
gastrointestinal disease · chronic gastritis · dyspepsia
open-angle glaucoma
Alzheimer disease · Alzheimer disease · cocaine abuse
Abdominal distention · dyspepsia · dyspepsia
Tractability
Safety liabilities
Clinical trials
Trials of drugs that target this protein — reached indirectly through those drugs, so a trial listed here studies the drug, not the protein.
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
Research activity
Papers linked directly to this protein. This is the protein's own literature — descriptor-derived papers are kept separate below.
Most cited
Recent
Europe PMC papers linked directly to this protein.
Forefront confidence
Our own weighting of the evidence behind each disease association. Human genetics and clinical evidence count for most; literature co-mention counts for little, because two entities sharing an abstract is not evidence that one drives the other.
This ranking differs from Open Targets' own: re-weighting moves genetically-evidenced diseases above more heavily co-mentioned ones. The evidence agreement range shows how closely the independent evidence families agree — it is not a statistical confidence interval, and nothing here is fitted to outcome data. Derived from Open Targets evidence types under Forefront weighting; the underlying per-type scores are shown above so the calculation can be checked.
What's happening now
Recent activity around this target, drawn from one canonical event stream. Every item is reached through a drug that targets this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- New publicationNeuroprotectant Activity of Novel Water-Soluble Synthetic Neurosteroids on Organophosphate Intoxication and Status Epilepticus-Induced Long-Term Neurological Dysfunction, Neurodegeneration, and Neuroinflammation.
- New publicationSex Differences in Organophosphate Model of Benzodiazepine-Refractory Status Epilepticus and Neuronal Damage.
- New publicationA Pediatric Rat Model of Organophosphate-Induced Refractory Status Epilepticus: Characterization of Long-Term Epileptic Seizure Activity, Neurologic Dysfunction and Neurodegeneration.
Objective event titles are shown unmodified; the event kind and significance line are derived from structured fields. Forefront AttentionEvent stream aggregating Europe PMC Regulatory filings ClinicalTrials.gov.