{"entity":{"id":"epor","kind":"target","name":"Erythropoietin receptor (EPOR)","aka":[],"tldr":"The receptor that tells the marrow to make red blood cells. Epoetin stimulates it to treat chemotherapy-induced anaemia, used with care because it can raise the risk of blood clots and, in some cancers, tumour growth.","summary":"Erythropoietin from the kidney binds EPOR on erythroid progenitors and signals through JAK2 and STAT5 to drive red cell production. Recombinant epoetin alfa and darbepoetin alfa raise haemoglobin and reduce transfusions in patients with chemotherapy-induced anaemia, but trials showed shorter survival and more thromboembolism when they were used to target normal haemoglobin levels or given outside chemotherapy, leading to restricted labels and a risk management programme in the United States. They are now used at the lowest dose that avoids transfusion, in patients on palliative-intent chemotherapy.","asOf":"2026-09-04","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin_receptor","links":[{"label":"UniProt P19235: EPOR","url":"https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P19235/entry"}],"tags":[],"related":["jak2"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":["epoetin-alfa","darbepoetin-alfa"],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":["anaemia"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"symbol":"EPOR","role":[],"sources":[],"specificity":"broadly-expressed","distribution":"one-type","specificityNote":"Broadly expressed or essential: HPA finds the RNA at low tissue specificity; the 3 medicines aimed at it (Epoetin alfa, Darbepoetin alfa, Epoetin theta) act on the wild-type protein, so normal tissue is exposed and the therapeutic window comes from the tumour's faster division or its dependence on the protein. HPA EPOR: RNA low tissue specificity; no normal tissue stained high. Distribution: no corpus cancer carries a prevalence row, threshold or catalogue link for it; Open Targets associates it with 1 specific cancer type at or above 0.5 (myelodysplastic syndrome). (Rule 7 of scripts/fetch-target-specificity.ts.)","specificitySources":[{"label":"Human Protein Atlas EPOR tissue","url":"https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000187266-EPOR/tissue","note":"RNA tissue and blood lineage specificity, normal tissue antibody staining (version 25.1, CC BY-SA 3.0)"},{"label":"Open Targets ENSG00000187266 associations","url":"https://platform.opentargets.org/target/ENSG00000187266/associations","note":"cancer associations at or above 0.5 (CC0)"}],"hgnc":"HGNC:3416","ensembl":"ENSG00000187266","uniprot":"P19235","entrez":"2057","firstDescribed":1990,"firstDescribedBasis":"sequence","firstDescribedNote":"Earliest sequence paper UniProt cites for the protein: Winkelmann J.C. et al, Blood, 1990, \"The gene for the human erythropoietin receptor: analysis of the coding sequence and assignment to chromosome 19p\".","firstDescribedSource":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2163695/","biology":"Cytokine receptor on erythroid progenitors signalling through JAK2 and STAT5; agonised by recombinant erythropoiesis-stimulating agents.","whereFound":["Supportive care: chemotherapy-induced anaemia","Expressed on some tumour cells, the basis of the safety concern"],"targetClass":"other","prevalence":[{"cancerId":"metastatic-cancer","pct":"host","measure":"Host target: erythropoietin receptor on marrow red-cell precursors. Not a tumour alteration, so no prevalence applies; the drug acts on normal tissue or on symptoms."}]},"route":"/targets/epor/","neighbours":{"target":[{"id":"jak2","kind":"target","name":"JAK2","route":"/targets/jak2/"}],"drug":[{"id":"darbepoetin-alfa","kind":"drug","name":"Darbepoetin alfa","route":"/drugs/darbepoetin-alfa/"},{"id":"epoetin-alfa","kind":"drug","name":"Epoetin alfa","route":"/drugs/epoetin-alfa/"},{"id":"epoetin-theta","kind":"drug","name":"Epoetin theta","route":"/drugs/epoetin-theta/"}],"term":[{"id":"anaemia","kind":"term","name":"Anaemia","route":"/terms/anaemia/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"all-ph-like","kind":"cancer","name":"Philadelphia chromosome-like acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (Ph-like or BCR::ABL1-like ALL)","route":"/cancers/all-ph-like/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-xm01-22-tjulandin-arch-drug-inf-2011","kind":"paper","name":"Epoetin theta with a new dosing schedule in anaemic cancer patients receiving nonplatinum-based chemotherapy: a randomised controlled trial (XM01-22)","route":"/key-papers/paper-xm01-22-tjulandin-arch-drug-inf-2011/"}]}}