Protein / target
Estrogen receptor beta
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Nuclear estrogen receptor activity
Primary system
Endocrine & metabolic
Strongest disease association
breast cancer
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
20 approved · 14 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
Nuclear hormone receptor. Binds estrogens with an affinity similar to that of ESR1/ER-alpha, and activates expression of reporter genes containing estrogen response elements (ERE) in an estrogen-dependent manner (PubMed:20074560)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (27)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Cchromatin
- Cmitochondrion
- Cnucleoplasm
- Cnucleus
- FDNA binding
- FDNA-binding transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
- Fenzyme binding
- Festrogen response element binding
- Fnuclear estrogen receptor activity
- Fnuclear receptor activity
- Fnuclear steroid receptor activity
- Freceptor antagonist activity
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Transcriptional regulation
- ·DNA-binding transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
- ·RNA polymerase II cis-regulatory region sequence-specific DNA binding
- ·DNA-templated transcription
- ·negative regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II
Nuclear receptor signalling
- ·DNA-binding transcription factor activity, RNA polymerase II-specific
- ·nuclear receptor activity
- ·Nuclear Receptor transcription pathway
View underlying pathways (6)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.
Estrogen receptor beta agonist
Estrogen receptor modulator
Appears in clinical studies involving osteoporosis, breast cancer, viral infectious disease
Estrogen receptor modulator
Appears in clinical studies involving menopause, Dyspareunia, Atrophy, postmenopausal atrophic vaginitis
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.
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 2,715 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 · 35 total
postmenopausal osteoporosis
menopause · Dyspareunia · Atrophy
benign prostatic hyperplasia · schizophrenia · Cognitive impairment
Atrophic Vaginitis · Atrophic Vaginitis · urgency urinary incontinence
breast cancer
breast cancer
carcinoma · prostate adenocarcinoma · prostate cancer
breast cancer · breast ductal adenocarcinoma · ductal breast carcinoma in situ
inflammatory bowel disease · endometriosis · rheumatoid arthritis
breast cancer
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.
Show remaining trials (18)Hide
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.
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 3 drugs that target this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- Label change
Label change: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
- New publicationHormonal Treatments and Vaginal Moisturizers for Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause : A Systematic Review.
- Label change
Label change: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
- New publicationFrom Gut to Hormones: Unraveling the Role of Gut Microbiota in (Phyto)Estrogen Modulation in Health and Disease.
- New publicationLasofoxifene versus fulvestrant for ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer with an ESR1 mutation: results from the randomized, phase II ELAINE 1 trial.
- New publicationOpen-label, phase II, multicenter study of lasofoxifene plus abemaciclib for treating women with metastatic ER+/HER2- breast cancer and an ESR1 mutation after disease progression on prior therapies: ELAINE 2.
- New publicationEquol: A Bacterial Metabolite from The Daidzein Isoflavone and Its Presumed Beneficial Health Effects.
- Indication expanded
Indication expansion: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
- Label change
Label change: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
- New publicationImprovements to the Vulva, Vestibule, Urethral Meatus, and Vagina in Women Treated With Ospemifene for Moderate to Severe Dyspareunia: A Prospective Vulvoscopic Pilot Study.
- Supplemental approval
Supplemental approval: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
- Supplemental approval
Supplemental approval: OSPEMIFENE (NDA203505)
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.