Protein / target
von Willebrand factor
Protein at a glance
Biological role
Extracellular matrix structural constituent
Primary system
Cardiovascular system
Strongest disease association
von Willebrand disease 2
Therapeutic maturity
Clinically validated target
Druggability
Small molecule
Clinical development
3 approved · 1 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
Important in the maintenance of hemostasis, it promotes adhesion of platelets to the sites of vascular injury by forming a molecular bridge between sub-endothelial collagen matrix and platelet-surface receptor complex GPIb-IX-V. Also acts as a chaperone for coagulation factor VIII, delivering it to the site of injury, stabilizing its heterodimeric structure and protecting it from premature clearance from plasma
Subcellular location
Domains and Gene Ontology detail (37)Hide
Domains & features
Gene Ontology
- Cendoplasmic reticulum
- Cextracellular exosome
- Cextracellular matrix
- Cextracellular region
- Cextracellular space
- Cplatelet alpha granule
- Cplatelet alpha granule lumen
- CWeibel-Palade body
- Fcollagen binding
- Fextracellular matrix structural constituent
- Fidentical protein binding
- Fimmunoglobulin binding
Biological roles
What this protein does, drawn together from its UniProt function, Gene Ontology terms and Reactome pathways.
View supporting evidenceHide supporting evidence
Haemostasis
- ·Important in the maintenance of hemostasis, it promotes adhesion of platelets to the sit…
- ·platelet alpha granule
- ·platelet alpha granule lumen
- ·blood coagulation
Cell adhesion
- ·Secreted, extracellular space, extracellular matrix
- ·extracellular matrix
- ·extracellular matrix structural constituent
- ·cell adhesion
Kinase signalling
- ·Signaling by moderate kinase activity BRAF mutants
- ·Signaling by high-kinase activity BRAF mutants
Proteolysis
- ·protease binding
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.
von Willebrand factor inhibitor
Appears in clinical studies involving Recurrent thrombophlebitis, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, Thrombocytopenia
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 1,575 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
thrombotic disease · intracranial embolism · thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura
Recurrent thrombophlebitis · thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura · acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura
hemorrhage · hemophilia · Von Willebrand disease
Von Willebrand disease · von Willebrand disease (hereditary or acquired) · hemorrhage
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.
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.
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 publicationThe Therapeutic Potential of Nanobodies.
- Regulatory approval
Approval: Cablivi (EMA)
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.