OnCo

CD73 / adenosine axis

Short target page →

CD73 is an enzyme on tumour and immune cells that converts ATP breakdown products into adenosine, a powerful immune-suppressant; blocking it or the adenosine receptors was a major immunotherapy hope that has not yet delivered. This dossier gathers the 0 products (0 approved), 0 trials, 1 pathway 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

Ecto-5'-nucleotidase anchored by GPI; produces adenosine that binds Gs-coupled A2A/A2B receptors, raising cAMP/PKA in lymphocytes and blunting TCR signalling, cytokine release and cytotoxicity; also promotes Treg and MDSC function.

Where it is found
  • Pancreatic cancer (high CD73)
  • NSCLC (especially KRAS/STK11-mutant)
  • TNBC, ovarian, colorectal cancer
  • Tregs, MDSCs and endothelium in the microenvironment
Class: enzyme · Gene: NT5E · Facts checked 2026-09-08 · Target page

Elsewhere: identifiers and databases

Built from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL ids

Products by modality and phase

Browse products →

No product in the corpus is aimed at this target yet.

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 →
  • Nutrient competition & metabolic immunosuppression
    Node: CD39 → CD73 → adenosine · 4 druggable nodes

    Tumours and immune cells eat from the same plate. Cancer cells hoard glucose and glutamine, dump lactate and acid, and burn tryptophan and arginine into by-products that paralyse T cells. The tumour wins the food fight, and the immune system loses before it has fired a shot.

    Which nodes have drugs →

Companion diagnostics and assays

Assay registry →

No companion diagnostic in the registry measures this target.

Preclinical models

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No model entry for this target yet; check the cancer entries on the models page.

No open questions recorded for this target yet. Suggest one.

Key papers and the live literature

Preprints →
Latest papers · live from Europe PMC
Open in Europe PMC

Query for this target: (TITLE:"CD73 / adenosine axis" OR ABSTRACT:"CD73 / adenosine axis" OR TITLE:"NT5E" OR ABSTRACT:"NT5E") 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 CD73 / adenosine axis, 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/cd73-adenosine.json. Licence CC BY 4.0.