Protein / target
Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Transmembrane receptor protein tyrosine kinase activity
Primary system
Cardiovascular system
Strongest disease association
lymphatic malformation 1
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
18 approved · 28 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 VEGFC and VEGFD, and plays an essential role in adult lymphangiogenesis and in the development of the vascular network and the cardiovascular system during embryonic development. Promotes proliferation, survival and migration of endothelial cells, and regulates angiogenic sprouting. Signaling by activated FLT4 leads to enhanced production of VEGFC, and to a lesser degree VEGFA, thereby creating a positive feedback loop that enhances FLT4 signaling. Modulates KDR signaling by forming heterodimers. The secreted isoform 3 may function as a decoy receptor for VEGFC and/or VEGFD and play an important role as a negative regulator of VEGFC-mediated lymphangiogenesis and angiogenesis. Binding of vascular growth factors to isoform 1 or isoform 2 leads to the activation of several signaling cascades; isoform 2 seems to be less efficient in signal transduction, because it has a truncated C-terminus and therefore lacks several phosphorylation sites. Mediates activation of the MAPK1/ERK2, MAPK3/ERK1 signaling pathway, of MAPK8 and the JUN signaling pathway, and of the AKT1 signaling pathway. Phosphorylates SHC1. Mediates phosphorylation of PIK3R1, the regulatory subunit of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase. Promotes phosphorylation of MAPK8 at 'Thr-183' and 'Tyr-185', and of AKT1 at 'Ser-473'
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (42)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Ccytosol
- Cextracellular region
- Cnucleus
- Cplasma membrane
- Creceptor complex
- FATP binding
- Fgrowth factor binding
- Fprotein homodimerization activity
- Fprotein phosphatase binding
- Ftransmembrane receptor protein tyrosine kinase activity
- Fvascular endothelial growth factor receptor activity
- Pblood vessel morphogenesis
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 VEGFC and VEGFD, and pl…
- ·transmembrane receptor protein tyrosine kinase activity
- ·peptidyl-tyrosine phosphorylation
- ·positive regulation of protein phosphorylation
Transcriptional regulation
- ·NOTCH4 Intracellular Domain Regulates Transcription
Apoptosis & cell death
- ·negative regulation of apoptotic 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.
Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3 inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving gastrointestinal stromal tumor, renal cell carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, neuroendocrine neoplasm
Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving renal cell carcinoma, renal cell carcinoma, neoplasm, pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving colorectal cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer, colorectal neoplasm, 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.
Show all associationsHide all associations
Open Targets ranks 980 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 · 47 total
renal cell carcinoma · neoplasm · renal cell adenocarcinoma
alveolar soft part sarcoma · leiomyosarcoma · synovial sarcoma
small cell lung carcinoma · cancer · ovarian cancer
gastric adenocarcinoma · gastric cancer · gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma
gastrointestinal stromal tumor · renal cell carcinoma · gastrointestinal stromal tumor
gastrointestinal stromal tumor
breast cancer · liver cancer · hepatocellular carcinoma
renal cell carcinoma · hepatocellular carcinoma · renal cell 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.
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.
- New publicationFecal microbiota transplantation plus pembrolizumab and axitinib in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: the randomized phase 2 TACITO trial.
- New publicationEfficacy of pembrolizumab in microsatellite-stable, tumor mutational burden-high metastatic colorectal cancer: genomic signatures and clinical outcomes.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Axitinib Accord (EMA)
- New publicationLenvatinib Plus Pembrolizumab Versus Standard of Care for Previously Treated Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Final Analysis of the Randomized, Open-Label, Phase III LEAP-017 Study.
- New publicationMachine-learning and mechanistic modeling of metastatic breast cancer after neoadjuvant treatment.
- New publicationThe more the merrier? Evidence and efficacy of immune checkpoint- and tyrosine kinase inhibitor combinations in advanced solid cancers.
- New publicationGenomic profiling in GIST: Implications in clinical outcome and future challenges.
- New publicationNivolumab plus Cabozantinib versus Sunitinib for Advanced Renal-Cell Carcinoma.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Sunitinib Accord (EMA)
- New publicationTargeted therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.
- New publicationLiver transarterial chemoembolization and sunitinib for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: Results of the PRODIGE 16 study.
- New publicationUpdated efficacy results from the JAVELIN Renal 101 trial: first-line avelumab plus axitinib versus sunitinib in patients with advanced renal cell 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.