OnCo

FOXA1 (Hepatocyte nuclear factor 3-alpha) is a protein that switches other genes on and off. The public catalogues list it as a drug target, an oncogene driver, a tumour suppressor and a biomarker, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Prostate cancer, Breast cancer, Neuroendocrine tumours and 1 more. This dossier gathers the 0 products (0 approved), 0 trials, 0 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

Transcription factor that is involved in embryonic development, establishment of tissue-specific gene expression and regulation of gene expression in differentiated tissues. Is thought to act as a 'pioneer' factor opening the compacted chromatin for other proteins through interactions with nucleosomal core histones and thereby replacing linker histones at target enhancer and/or promoter sites. Binds DNA with the consensus sequence 5'-[AC]A[AT]T[AG]TT[GT][AG][CT]T[CT]-3'. Proposed to play a role in translating the epigenetic signatures into cell type-specific enhancer-driven transcriptional programs. Its differential recruitment to chromatin is dependent on distribution of histone H3 methylated at 'Lys-5' (H3K4me2) in oestrogen-regulated genes. Involved in the development of multiple endoderm-derived organ systems such as liver, pancreas, lung and prostate; FOXA1 and FOXA2 seem to have at least in part redundant roles. Location: Nucleus (UniProt). Locus 14q21.1 (HGNC).

Where it is found
  • Prostate cancer: Open Targets association 0.73 with prostate cancer (MONDO_0008315); IntOGen driver in 11 cohorts (PRAD)
  • Breast cancer: Open Targets association 0.72 with breast cancer (MONDO_0007254); IntOGen driver in 4 cohorts (BRCA)
  • Neuroendocrine tumours: Open Targets association 0.51 with neuroendocrine neoplasm (MONDO_0019496)
  • HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer: CIViC evidence names this disease
Class: transcription · Gene: FOXA1 · Facts checked 2026-09-23 · Target page

External identifiers

Built from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL ids

Products by modality and phase

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Resistance routes

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Companion diagnostics

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Preclinical models

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Literature

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Query for this target: (TITLE:"FOXA1" OR ABSTRACT:"FOXA1" OR TITLE:"forkhead box A1" OR ABSTRACT:"forkhead box A1" OR TITLE:"Hepatocyte nuclear factor 3-alpha" OR ABSTRACT:"Hepatocyte nuclear factor 3-alpha" OR TITLE:"HNF3A" OR ABSTRACT:"HNF3A") 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 FOXA1, 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/foxa1.json. Licence CC BY-NC 4.0.