Protein / target
Histone deacetylase 3
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Histone isonicotinyllysine deisonicotinylase activity
Primary system
Endocrine & metabolic
Strongest disease association
neurodevelopmental disorder
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
8 approved · 6 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
Histone deacetylase that catalyzes the deacetylation of lysine residues on the N-terminal part of the core histones (H2A, H2B, H3 and H4), and some other non-histone substrates (PubMed:21030595, PubMed:21444723, PubMed:23911289, PubMed:25301942, PubMed:28167758, PubMed:28497810, PubMed:32404892, PubMed:22230954). Histone deacetylation gives a tag for epigenetic repression and plays an important role in transcriptional regulation, cell cycle progression and developmental events (PubMed:23911289). Histone deacetylases act via the formation of large multiprotein complexes, such as N-Cor repressor complex, which activate the histone deacetylase activity (PubMed:23911289, PubMed:22230954). Participates in the BCL6 transcriptional repressor activity by deacetylating the H3 'Lys-27' (H3K27) on enhancer elements, antagonizing EP300 acetyltransferase activity and repressing proximal gene expression (PubMed:23911289). Acts as a molecular chaperone for shuttling phosphorylated NR2C1 to PML bodies for sumoylation (By similarity). Contributes, together with XBP1 isoform 1, to the activation of NFE2L2-mediated HMOX1 transcription factor gene expression in a PI(3)K/mTORC2/Akt-dependent signaling pathway leading to endothelial cell (EC) survival under disturbed flow/oxidative stress (PubMed:25190803). Regulates both the transcriptional activation and repression phases of the circadian clock in a deacetylase activity-independent manner (By similarity). During the activation phase, promotes the accumulation of ubiquitinated BMAL1 at the E-boxes and during the repression phase, blocks FBXL3-mediated CRY1/2 ubiquitination and promotes the interaction of CRY1 and BMAL1 (By similarity). The NCOR1-HDAC3 complex regulates the circadian expression of the core clock gene BMAL1 and the genes involved in lipid metabolism in the liver (By similarity). Also functions as a deacetylase for non-histone targets, such as KAT5, MEF2D, MAPK14, RARA and STAT3 (PubMed:15653507, PubMed:21030595, PubMed:21444723, PubMed:25301942, PubMed:28167758). Serves as a corepressor of RARA, mediating its deacetylation and repression, leading to inhibition of RARE DNA element binding (PubMed:28167758). In association with RARA, plays a role in the repression of microRNA-10a and thereby in the inflammatory response (PubMed:28167758). In addition to protein deacetylase activity, also acts as a protein-lysine deacylase by recognizing other acyl groups: catalyzes removal of (2E)-butenoyl (crotonyl), lactoyl (lactyl), 2-hydroxyisobutanoyl (2-hydroxyisobutyryl) and isonicotinyl acyl groups from lysine residues, leading to protein decrotonylation, delactylation, de-2-hydroxyisobutyrylation and deisonicotinylation, respectively (PubMed:28497810, PubMed:29192674, PubMed:34608293, PubMed:34545082, PubMed:35044827). Catalyzes decrotonylation of MAPRE1/EB1 (PubMed:34608293). Mediates delactylation NBN/NBS1, thereby inhibiting DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) via homologous recombination (HR) (PubMed:38961290)
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (64)Hide
Gene Ontology
- Cchromatin
- Ccytoplasm
- Ccytosol
- Chistone deacetylase complex
- Cmitotic spindle
- Cnucleoplasm
- Cnucleus
- Ctranscription repressor complex
- Fchromatin binding
- Fchromatin DNA binding
- Fcyclin binding
- FDNA-binding transcription factor binding
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
- ·Histone deacetylase that catalyzes the deacetylation of lysine residues on the N-termina…
- ·transcription repressor complex
- ·DNA-binding transcription factor binding
- ·transcription corepressor activity
Immune signalling
- ·Histone deacetylase that catalyzes the deacetylation of lysine residues on the N-termina…
- ·negative regulation of interleukin-1 production
- ·Differentiation of naive CD4+ T cells to T helper 2 cells (Th2 cells)
Apoptosis & cell death
- ·negative regulation of apoptotic process
- ·positive regulation of neuron apoptotic process
- ·positive regulation of type B pancreatic cell apoptotic process
Kinase signalling
- ·positive regulation of protein phosphorylation
Proteolysis
- ·ubiquitin-specific protease binding
Metabolic enzyme activity
- ·Histone deacetylase that catalyzes the deacetylation of lysine residues on the N-termina…
View underlying pathways (25)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.
Histone deacetylase 3 inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, 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 631 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 · 14 total
breast cancer · gastric cancer · liver cancer
non-small cell lung carcinoma · exocrine pancreatic carcinoma
T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma · peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified · primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma
non-small cell lung carcinoma · Hodgkins lymphoma · classic Hodgkin lymphoma
Duchenne muscular dystrophy · Duchenne muscular dystrophy · acquired polycythemia vera
primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma · ovarian carcinoma · malignant epithelial tumor of ovary
plasma cell myeloma · neoplasm · type 2 diabetes mellitus
T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma · primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma · primary cutaneous T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma
neoplasm · breast cancer · colorectal cancer
diffuse large B-cell lymphoma · thyroid cancer · poorly differentiated thyroid gland carcinoma
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 (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 a drug that targets this protein, so each event is news about that drug rather than about the protein directly.
- New publicationKetogenic Diet Alters the Epigenetic and Immune Landscape of Prostate Cancer to Overcome Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Blockade Therapy.
- New publicationSuberoylanilide Hydroxamic Acid (SAHA) Is a Driver Molecule of Neuroplasticity: Implication for Neurological Diseases.
- New publicationPhase I study of the mTOR inhibitor ridaforolimus and the HDAC inhibitor vorinostat in advanced renal cell carcinoma and other solid tumors.
- New publicationVorinostat in patients with advanced malignant pleural mesothelioma who have progressed on previous chemotherapy (VANTAGE-014): a phase 3, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial.
- New publicationA phase 1 study of vorinostat maintenance after autologous transplant in high-risk lymphoma.
- New publicationA multicentre phase II study of vorinostat in patients with relapsed or refractory indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma.
- New publicationHIV-1 expression within resting CD4+ T cells after multiple doses of vorinostat.
- New publicationPhase II trial of vorinostat in advanced melanoma.
- New publicationVorinostat plus tacrolimus and mycophenolate to prevent graft-versus-host disease after related-donor reduced-intensity conditioning allogeneic haemopoietic stem-cell transplantation: a phase 1/2 trial.
- New publicationAdministration of vorinostat disrupts HIV-1 latency in patients on antiretroviral therapy.
- New publicationPhase I and pharmacokinetic study of the oral histone deacetylase inhibitor vorinostat in Japanese patients with relapsed or refractory cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.
- New publicationEvaluation of safety, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy of vorinostat, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, in the treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) cancer in a phase I clinical trial.
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.