Glypican-3 (GPC3) as a Radioligand Therapy Target
Glypican-3 (GPC3), glypican 3, is a cell-surface protein. No tumor protein staining is recorded for it in Human Protein Atlas immunohistochemistry. Clinical status: Clinical-stage (up to phase 2, any modality), with 1 active clinical trial.
Is Glypican-3 a good radioligand therapy target?
Scored against the six criteria that decide whether a protein can become a radioligand therapy:
- ✅ Cell-surface accessibility: Localized to the cell surface, so a radioligand can reach it from circulation.
- ❌ Tumor expression: No tumor staining in HPA immunohistochemistry.
- ❔ Internalization: Not yet assessed.
- ✅ Clinical precedent: Clinical-stage (up to phase 2, any modality)
- ❔ Shedding: Not yet assessed.
- ❔ Normal-tissue dosimetry: Check kidney, liver, bone marrow and salivary expression in the Human Protein Atlas tissue atlas.
Glypican-3 expression in cancer
No Human Protein Atlas tumor immunohistochemistry data is available for Glypican-3.
Is Glypican-3 internalized?
Nuclens has not yet extracted internalization evidence for Glypican-3. Internalization matters for radioligands because an internalizing receptor traps the radionuclide inside the tumor cell. Run a full analysis to pull the latest literature.
Glypican-3 clinical trials
Clinical-stage (up to phase 2, any modality). 1 active trial reference Glypican-3 (ClinicalTrials.gov, accessed 2026-09-14).
Glypican-3 normal tissue expression
Normal-tissue expression in dose-limiting organs (kidney, liver, bone marrow, salivary glands) drives radioligand dosimetry risk. Nuclens is re-validating its normal-tissue values, so they are not shown here yet. See Glypican-3 in the Human Protein Atlas tissue atlas, and read how normal-tissue expression predicts radioligand dosimetry risk.
Glypican-3 gene essentiality (DepMap)
CRISPR knockout effect across 1255 cancer cell lines: 0.09 (not essential). Radioligands kill by radiation, not by blocking the target, so essentiality matters less than for inhibitors. A non-essential target can still be an excellent radioligand target.
See how Glypican-3 ranks against 15,000 targets for your indication.
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Subcellular localization: UniProt via Open Targets (CC BY 4.0 / CC0). Tumor immunohistochemistry: Human Protein Atlas (CC BY-SA 4.0). Clinical trials: ClinicalTrials.gov (public domain). Gene essentiality: DepMap (CC BY 4.0). Internalization and shedding: AI-extracted from PubMed abstracts, so verify against the cited papers before relying on them. Nuclens is a first-pass triage layer, not a substitute for wet-lab validation or clinical dosimetry. Derived expression data on this page is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.