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MSH2 (DNA mismatch repair protein Msh2) is a gene. The public catalogues list it as a drug target, a biomarker and a DNA repair gene, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Colorectal cancer, Endometrial cancer, Ovarian cancer and 5 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

Component of the post-replicative DNA mismatch repair system (MMR). Forms two different heterodimers: MutS alpha (MSH2-MSH6 heterodimer) and MutS beta (MSH2-MSH3 heterodimer) which binds to DNA mismatches thereby initiating DNA repair. When bound, heterodimers bend the DNA helix and shields approximately 20 base pairs. MutS alpha recognises single base mismatches and dinucleotide insertion-deletion loops (IDL) in the DNA. MutS beta recognises larger insertion-deletion loops up to 13 nucleotides long. After mismatch binding, MutS alpha or beta forms a ternary complex with the MutL alpha heterodimer, which is thought to be responsible for directing the downstream MMR events, including strand discrimination, excision, and resynthesis. Location: Nucleus; Chromosome (UniProt). Locus 2p21-p16.3 (HGNC).

Where it is found
  • Colorectal cancer: Open Targets association 0.92 with colorectal cancer (MONDO_0005575); CIViC evidence names this disease
  • Endometrial cancer: Open Targets association 0.74 with endometrial cancer (MONDO_0011962); CIViC evidence names this disease
  • Ovarian cancer: Open Targets association 0.74 with ovarian cancer (MONDO_0008170)
  • Breast cancer: Open Targets association 0.67 with breast cancer (MONDO_0007254)
  • Gastric & gastro-oesophageal junction cancer: Open Targets association 0.63 with gastric cancer (MONDO_0001056)
  • Skin cancer: Open Targets association 0.56 with skin cancer (MONDO_0002898)
Class: other · Gene: MSH2 · 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:"MSH2" OR ABSTRACT:"MSH2" OR TITLE:"mutS homolog 2" OR ABSTRACT:"mutS homolog 2" OR TITLE:"DNA mismatch repair protein Msh2" OR ABSTRACT:"DNA mismatch repair protein Msh2" OR TITLE:"HNPCC" OR ABSTRACT:"HNPCC" OR TITLE:"HNPCC1" OR ABSTRACT:"HNPCC1" OR TITLE:"MSH-2" OR ABSTRACT:"MSH-2") 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 MSH2, 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/msh2.json. Licence CC BY-NC 4.0.