Protein / target
Folate receptor alpha
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Folic acid receptor activity
Primary system
Cardiovascular system
Strongest disease association
neurodegenerative syndrome due to cerebral folate transport deficiency
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
2 approved · 2 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
Binds to folate and reduced folic acid derivatives and mediates delivery of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate and folate analogs into the interior of cells (PubMed:19074442, PubMed:23851396, PubMed:23934049, PubMed:2527252, PubMed:8033114, PubMed:8567728). Has high affinity for folate and folic acid analogs at neutral pH (PubMed:23851396, PubMed:23934049, PubMed:2527252, PubMed:8033114, PubMed:8567728). Exposure to slightly acidic pH after receptor endocytosis triggers a conformation change that strongly reduces its affinity for folates and mediates their release (PubMed:8567728). Required for normal embryonic development and normal cell proliferation (By similarity)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (34)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Capical plasma membrane
- Cbasolateral plasma membrane
- Cbrush border membrane
- Ccell surface
- Cclathrin-coated vesicle
- Cendoplasmic reticulum membrane
- Cendoplasmic reticulum-Golgi intermediate compartment membrane
- Cendosome
- CER to Golgi transport vesicle membrane
- Cexternal side of plasma membrane
- Cextracellular exosome
- CGolgi membrane
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Immune signalling
- ·cardiac neural crest cell migration involved in outflow tract morphogenesis
- ·neural crest cell migration involved in heart formation
Cell adhesion
- ·cell adhesion
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.
Folate receptor alpha binding agent
Appears in clinical studies involving ovarian cancer, ovarian neoplasm, fallopian tube neoplasm, peritoneal neoplasm
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 461 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 · 4 total
neoplasm · ovarian cancer · endometrial cancer
ovarian cancer
ovarian cancer · ovarian neoplasm · fallopian tube neoplasm
non-small cell lung carcinoma · ovarian cancer · malignant epithelial tumor of ovary
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 (14)Hide
ClinicalTrials.gov via the drug-target graph.
Related literature
Papers indexed under “Folate Receptor 1” — a subject heading that covers this protein without being specific to it. Shown as context; not counted as this protein's own research activity.
Europe PMC literature, reached through a MeSH descriptor linked 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 a drug that targets this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- New publicationAnalysis of real world FRα testing in ovarian, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancers.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Elahere (EMA)
- New publicationMirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx: first antibody/antigen-drug conjugate (ADC) in advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer.
- New publicationEfficacy and Safety of Mirvetuximab Soravtansine in Patients With Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer With High Folate Receptor Alpha Expression: Results From the SORAYA Study.
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.