{"entity":{"id":"drd2","kind":"target","name":"Dopamine D2 receptor","aka":[],"tldr":"The dopamine D2 receptor is how cabergoline and bromocriptine shrink prolactin-secreting pituitary tumours without surgery, and it is the target of the antiemetics metoclopramide and prochlorperazine used during chemotherapy.","summary":"The D2 dopamine receptor on pituitary lactotroph cells inhibits prolactin release, so the dopamine agonists cabergoline and bromocriptine are the first-line treatment for prolactinomas, normalising prolactin and shrinking the tumour in most patients; they also have some effect in other pituitary adenomas and in neuroendocrine tumours that express the receptor. In supportive care, D2 antagonists such as metoclopramide, prochlorperazine and olanzapine treat chemotherapy-induced nausea. D2 receptor expression on glioblastoma and other tumour cells has prompted trials of the antagonist ONC201 (dordaviprone), which acts on D2 and on the mitochondrial protease ClpP and was approved in 2025 for H3 K27M-mutant diffuse midline glioma.","asOf":"2026-09-04","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_receptor_D2","links":[{"label":"UniProt P14416: DRD2","url":"https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P14416/entry"},{"label":"HGNC:3023 DRD2","url":"https://www.genenames.org/data/gene-symbol-report/#!/hgnc_id/HGNC:3023"},{"label":"ChEMBL target CHEMBL217","url":"https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/explore/target/CHEMBL217"}],"tags":["chembl-gap"],"related":["sstr2"],"cancers":["pituitary-tumours","neuroendocrine","glioblastoma"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":["dordaviprone"],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"symbol":"DRD2","role":[],"sources":[],"specificity":"tumour-associated","distribution":"few-types","specificityNote":"Tumour-associated overexpression: HPA finds the RNA group enriched in normal brain, pituitary gland, so the tumour and the normal tissue it comes from share the target and the medicine relies on the difference in level. HPA DRD2: RNA group enriched (brain 62 nTPM, pituitary gland 57 nTPM); high antibody staining in 1 normal tissue. Distribution: 2 cancer families in the corpus carry a prevalence row, label threshold or catalogue link for it (Brain and spinal cord tumours (all types), Neuroendocrine tumours); Open Targets associates it with 0 specific cancer types at or above 0.5. (Rule 7 of scripts/fetch-target-specificity.ts.)","specificitySources":[{"label":"Human Protein Atlas DRD2 tissue","url":"https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000149295-DRD2/tissue","note":"RNA tissue and blood lineage specificity, normal tissue antibody staining (version 25.1, CC BY-SA 3.0)"},{"label":"Human Protein Atlas DRD2 pathology","url":"https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000149295-DRD2/pathology","note":"patients per staining level per cancer type (version 25.1, CC BY-SA 3.0)"},{"label":"Open Targets ENSG00000149295 associations","url":"https://platform.opentargets.org/target/ENSG00000149295/associations","note":"cancer associations at or above 0.5 (CC0)"}],"hgnc":"HGNC:3023","ensembl":"ENSG00000149295","uniprot":"P14416","entrez":"1813","firstDescribed":1989,"firstDescribedBasis":"sequence","firstDescribedNote":"Earliest sequence paper UniProt cites for the protein: Selbie L.A. et al, DNA, 1989, \"The major dopamine D2 receptor: molecular analysis of the human D2A subtype\".","firstDescribedSource":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2533064/","biology":"A Gi-coupled G-protein-coupled receptor that lowers cyclic AMP; in the pituitary it suppresses prolactin gene expression and lactotroph proliferation.","whereFound":["Pituitary lactotrophs, striatum and chemoreceptor trigger zone","Prolactinomas, some neuroendocrine tumours and gliomas"],"targetClass":"other","prevalence":[{"cancerId":"metastatic-cancer","pct":"host","measure":"Host target: dopamine receptor; also the target in prolactin-secreting pituitary tumours. Not a tumour alteration, so no prevalence applies; the drug acts on normal tissue or on symptoms."}]},"route":"/targets/drd2/","neighbours":{"target":[{"id":"sstr2","kind":"target","name":"Somatostatin receptor 2","route":"/targets/sstr2/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"glioblastoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Glioma & glioblastoma","route":"/cancers/glioblastoma/"},{"id":"neuroendocrine","kind":"cancer","name":"Neuroendocrine tumours","route":"/cancers/neuroendocrine/"},{"id":"pituitary-tumours","kind":"cancer","name":"Pituitary tumours (pituitary neuroendocrine tumours) and pituitary carcinoma","route":"/cancers/pituitary-tumours/"}],"drug":[{"id":"bromocriptine","kind":"drug","name":"Bromocriptine","route":"/drugs/bromocriptine/"},{"id":"cabergoline","kind":"drug","name":"Cabergoline","route":"/drugs/cabergoline/"},{"id":"dordaviprone","kind":"drug","name":"Dordaviprone","route":"/drugs/dordaviprone/"}]}}