The 'don't eat me' signal cancer cells show to macrophages. Blocking it looked promising but the lead drug failed. This dossier gathers the 1 product (0 approved), 0 trials, 4 pathways and 0 resistance routes in the corpus that involve it, with external identifiers so it can be joined to UniProt, ChEMBL, Open Targets and the rest of biology.
Biology
Binds SIRPα on macrophages to inhibit phagocytosis; ubiquitous on red cells, causing anaemia.
- Broadly on tumour cells
Elsewhere: identifiers and databases
Built from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL idsHow common it is, by cancer
Full matrix →| Cancer | Prevalence | Measure | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acute myeloid leukaemia | >90% | Surface expression on blasts | Magrolimab discontinued | Wikipedia |
| Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma | >90% | Surface expression | Wikipedia |
Approximate, population-level figures; the measure column says what was counted. Ranges show the midpoint as a bar.
Products by modality and phase
Browse products →| Modality | Withdrawn or failed |
|---|---|
| Antibody 1 |
Trials
Evidence ranking →No trial in the corpus names this target or one of its products.
Resistance routes that involve this target
Unaddressed routes →The resistance atlas has no route that names this target.
Pathways where it is a node
Pathway-to-drug matrix →- CD47 / SIRPα (the 'don't eat me' signal)Node: CD47 on tumour (and red) cells · 1 druggable nodes
Macrophages eat cells that look wrong, unless the cell shows CD47, a 'don't eat me' badge. Many cancers overproduce CD47 to escape being eaten. Antibodies that cover the badge should let macrophages clear the tumour; the idea works in the lab, but the leading drug failed in blood cancers because red cells wear the same badge.
Which nodes have drugs → - MYCNode: CD47, PD-L1 (immune evasion) · 1 druggable nodes
MYC is the most commonly amplified cancer gene, a master switch that turns on thousands of growth genes. It has no pocket for a conventional drug, so it remained 'undruggable' for 40 years; the first direct MYC drugs finally entered trials in the 2020s.
Which nodes have drugs → - Myeloid suppression: TAMs, MDSCs & don't-eat-me signalsNode: CD47 → SIRPα 'don't eat' · 4 druggable nodes
Tumours recruit the body's clean-up cells (macrophages and immature myeloid cells) and re-train them as bodyguards. They switch off T cells, build vessels, and, when a therapeutic antibody flags a cancer cell for eating, are told 'don't eat me' by CD47 on its surface.
Which nodes have drugs → - Tumour microenvironment (TME)Node: TAMs (CSF1R, CD47 axis) · 5 druggable nodes
A tumour is not just cancer cells. It is a neighbourhood of fibroblasts, immune cells, blood vessels, nerves, and scaffolding that the cancer recruits and corrupts, and that decides whether drugs and immune cells can get in.
Which nodes have drugs →
Companion diagnostics and assays
Assay registry →No companion diagnostic in the registry measures this target.
Preclinical models
All models →No model entry for this target yet; check the cancer entries on the models page.
Open questions
All open questions →No open questions recorded for this target yet. Suggest one.
Ideas and companies
Key papers and the live literature
Preprints →Query for this target: (TITLE:"CD47" OR ABSTRACT:"CD47") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about CD47, not a curated reading list.
Export
The dossier as machine-readable JSON: identifiers from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL, products with status, trials, pathways, hotspots, open questions and assays. The full entity record is in the open API at /api/v1/entities/cd47.json. Licence CC BY 4.0.