{"entity":{"id":"epcam","kind":"target","name":"EpCAM","aka":[],"tldr":"An adhesion protein on almost all carcinoma cells and the capture molecule for circulating tumour cell tests; the target of the first bispecific antibody ever approved (catumaxomab, 2009).","summary":"EpCAM (CD326) is expressed on most carcinomas (colorectal, gastric, pancreatic, breast, ovarian, lung) and on circulating tumour cells (CellSearch). Catumaxomab (EpCAM×CD3 trifunctional) was approved in the EU in 2009 for malignant ascites, withdrawn commercially in 2017 and re-approved in 2025; edrecolomab (adjuvant colon) failed in the 1990s; oportuzumab monatox (intravesical, BCG-unresponsive NMIBC) received an FDA CRL in 2021. Solitomab (BiTE) was too toxic because of normal epithelial expression. EpCAM CAR-T and ADCs are being tested in gastric and colorectal cancer, and germline EPCAM deletions cause Lynch syndrome via MSH2 silencing.","asOf":"2026-09-08","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithelial_cell_adhesion_molecule","links":[{"label":"EMA: Korjuny (catumaxomab)","url":"https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/korjuny"}],"tags":["gap-fill"],"related":[],"cancers":["colorectal","gastric","ovarian","pancreatic","urothelial"],"sections":[],"technologies":["bispecific-antibody","liquid-biopsy","car-t"],"targets":[],"drugs":["catumaxomab"],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":["mismatch-repair-msi"],"terms":["lynch-syndrome"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Ovarian and urothelial rates are not well characterised by a single figure: the largest series (Spizzo 2011, doi:10.1136/jcp.2011.090274) reports adenocarcinomas as mostly positive but urothelial and squamous carcinomas as frequently EpCAM-negative and recommends IHC before any EpCAM-directed therapy.","Colorectal cancer: deletions of the 3' exons of EPCAM cause Lynch syndrome without any mutation in a mismatch repair gene, by transcriptional read-through that methylates and silences the adjacent MSH2 promoter in EpCAM-expressing tissue (Ligtenberg 2009). EPCAM copy-number analysis is therefore part of a complete Lynch syndrome panel."],"symbol":"EPCAM","role":[],"sources":[],"specificity":"tumour-associated","distribution":"many-types","specificityNote":"Tumour-associated overexpression: 2 cell-killing or cell-finding medicines (Catumaxomab, M701) aim at the antigen, which HPA finds stained high in 12 normal tissues; the medicine relies on the tumour carrying more of it than the normal tissue it shares it with. HPA EPCAM: RNA tissue enhanced (intestine 756 nTPM); high antibody staining in 12 normal tissues; highest cancer staining colorectal cancer (12 of 12 high). Distribution: 5 cancer families in the corpus carry a prevalence row, label threshold or catalogue link for it (Colorectal cancer, Gastric & gastro-oesophageal junction cancer, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, Ovarian cancer, Bladder & urothelial cancer); Open Targets associates it with 3 specific cancer types at or above 0.5 (Lynch syndrome 8, gastric cancer, Lynch syndrome). (Rule 5 of scripts/fetch-target-specificity.ts.)","specificitySources":[{"label":"Human Protein Atlas EPCAM tissue","url":"https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000119888-EPCAM/tissue","note":"RNA tissue and blood lineage specificity, normal tissue antibody staining (version 25.1, CC BY-SA 3.0)"},{"label":"Human Protein Atlas EPCAM pathology","url":"https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000119888-EPCAM/pathology","note":"patients per staining level per cancer type (version 25.1, CC BY-SA 3.0)"},{"label":"Open Targets ENSG00000119888 associations","url":"https://platform.opentargets.org/target/ENSG00000119888/associations","note":"cancer associations at or above 0.5 (CC0)"}],"hgnc":"HGNC:11529","ensembl":"ENSG00000119888","uniprot":"P16422","entrez":"4072","firstDescribed":1989,"firstDescribedBasis":"sequence","firstDescribedNote":"Earliest sequence paper UniProt cites for the protein: Strnad et al, Cancer Res, 1989, \"Molecular cloning and characterization of a human adenocarcinoma/epithelial cell surface antigen complementary DNA\".","firstDescribedSource":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2463074/","biology":"Type I transmembrane glycoprotein mediating Ca-independent homotypic cell adhesion; regulated intramembrane proteolysis releases EpICD, which co-activates Wnt/β-catenin target genes (c-MYC, cyclin D1).","whereFound":["Colorectal, gastric, pancreatic and biliary adenocarcinoma (>90%)","Breast, ovarian, endometrial and prostate cancer (high)","Circulating tumour cells (capture antigen)","Normal epithelia (basolateral, lower level)"],"targetClass":"surface-antigen","prevalence":[{"cancerId":"colorectal","pct":97.7,"measure":"IHC, high-level EpCAM expression (TMA, n=1186)","source":"https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6602924","note":"Only 0.4% EpCAM-negative; 92.1% in grade 3 tumours"},{"cancerId":"gastric","pct":90.7,"measure":"IHC, high-level EpCAM expression (TMA, n=473)","source":"https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6602924","note":"2.5% EpCAM-negative"},{"cancerId":"pancreatic","pct":78,"measure":"IHC, strong EpCAM expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (multi-tumour TMA, 3900 samples)","source":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humpath.2003.08.026"}]},"route":"/targets/epcam/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"urothelial","kind":"cancer","name":"Bladder & urothelial cancer","route":"/cancers/urothelial/"},{"id":"colorectal","kind":"cancer","name":"Colorectal cancer","route":"/cancers/colorectal/"},{"id":"gastric","kind":"cancer","name":"Gastric & gastro-oesophageal junction cancer","route":"/cancers/gastric/"},{"id":"ovarian","kind":"cancer","name":"Ovarian cancer","route":"/cancers/ovarian/"},{"id":"pancreatic","kind":"cancer","name":"Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma","route":"/cancers/pancreatic/"}],"technology":[{"id":"bispecific-antibody","kind":"technology","name":"Bispecific antibodies","route":"/technologies/bispecific-antibody/"},{"id":"car-t","kind":"technology","name":"CAR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/car-t/"},{"id":"liquid-biopsy","kind":"technology","name":"Liquid biopsy (ctDNA)","route":"/technologies/liquid-biopsy/"}],"drug":[{"id":"catumaxomab","kind":"drug","name":"Catumaxomab","route":"/drugs/catumaxomab/"},{"id":"m701","kind":"drug","name":"M701","route":"/drugs/m701/"}],"pathway":[{"id":"intravasation-ctc-survival","kind":"pathway","name":"Intravasation & circulating tumour cells","route":"/pathways/intravasation-ctc-survival/"},{"id":"mismatch-repair-msi","kind":"pathway","name":"Mismatch repair & microsatellite instability","route":"/pathways/mismatch-repair-msi/"}],"term":[{"id":"lynch-syndrome","kind":"term","name":"Lynch syndrome","route":"/terms/lynch-syndrome/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-ligtenberg-epcam-deletion-msh2-silencing-nat-genet-2009","kind":"paper","name":"Heritable somatic methylation and inactivation of MSH2 in families with Lynch syndrome due to deletion of the 3' exons of TACSTD1","route":"/key-papers/paper-ligtenberg-epcam-deletion-msh2-silencing-nat-genet-2009/"}]}}