Protein / target
Fibroblast growth factor receptor 4
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Fibroblast growth factor receptor activity
Primary system
Endocrine & metabolic
Strongest disease association
Abnormality of the skeletal system
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
6 approved · 11 in clinical development
Derived from structured UniProt, Open Targets and literature data on this page.
Protein profile
Canonical identity and biological annotation from UniProt.
Function
Tyrosine-protein kinase that acts as a cell-surface receptor for fibroblast growth factors and plays a role in the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation and migration, and in regulation of lipid metabolism, bile acid biosynthesis, glucose uptake, vitamin D metabolism and phosphate homeostasis. Required for normal down-regulation of the expression of CYP7A1, the rate-limiting enzyme in bile acid synthesis, in response to FGF19. Phosphorylates PLCG1 and FRS2. Ligand binding leads to the activation of several signaling cascades. Activation of PLCG1 leads to the production of the cellular signaling molecules diacylglycerol and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate. Phosphorylation of FRS2 triggers recruitment of GRB2, GAB1, PIK3R1 and SOS1, and mediates activation of RAS, MAPK1/ERK2, MAPK3/ERK1 and the MAP kinase signaling pathway, as well as of the AKT1 signaling pathway. Promotes SRC-dependent phosphorylation of the matrix protease MMP14 and its lysosomal degradation. FGFR4 signaling is down-regulated by receptor internalization and degradation; MMP14 promotes internalization and degradation of FGFR4. Mutations that lead to constitutive kinase activation or impair normal FGFR4 inactivation lead to aberrant signaling
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (31)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Cendoplasmic reticulum
- Cendosome
- Cextracellular region
- CGolgi apparatus
- Cplasma membrane
- Creceptor complex
- Ctransport vesicle
- FATP binding
- Ffibroblast growth factor binding
- Ffibroblast growth factor receptor activity
- Fheparin binding
- Pcell migration
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Kinase signalling
- ·Tyrosine-protein kinase that acts as a cell-surface receptor for fibroblast growth facto…
- ·peptidyl-tyrosine phosphorylation
- ·protein autophosphorylation
Proteolysis
- ·Tyrosine-protein kinase that acts as a cell-surface receptor for fibroblast growth facto…
- ·positive regulation of proteolysis
Metabolic enzyme activity
- ·positive regulation of catalytic activity
- ·regulation of lipid metabolic process
Cell adhesion
- ·regulation of extracellular matrix disassembly
Transcriptional regulation
- ·positive regulation of gene expression
View underlying pathways (14)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.
Fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving cancer, urothelial carcinoma, urinary bladder carcinoma, neoplasm
Fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving cancer, biliary tract cancer, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma
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 596 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 · 17 total
hepatocellular carcinoma
cancer · urothelial carcinoma · urinary bladder carcinoma
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis · systemic sclerosis · non-small cell lung carcinoma
gastric adenocarcinoma · non-small cell lung carcinoma · breast cancer
intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma · cholangiocarcinoma · gastric adenocarcinoma
cholangiocarcinoma · neoplasm · cancer
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis · colorectal cancer · interstitial lung disease
colorectal carcinoma · breast carcinoma · exocrine pancreatic carcinoma
breast cancer · liver cancer · hepatocellular carcinoma
cancer · biliary tract cancer · intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
Tractability
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 (24)Hide
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
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 2 drugs that target this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Balversa (EMA)
- New publicationClinical and Genomic Landscape of FGFR3-Altered Urothelial Carcinoma and Treatment Outcomes with Erdafitinib: A Real-World Experience.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Lytgobi (EMA)
- New publicationFutibatinib for <i>FGFR2</i>-Rearranged Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma.
- New publicationErdafitinib in Locally Advanced or Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma.
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.