Emerging New Concepts of Degrader Technologies

Ding, Yu; Fei, Yiyan; Lu, Boxun

Abstract The traditional drug discovery focuses on identifying direct inhibitors of target proteins. This approach typically relies on a specific measurable biochemical readout and amenable binding sites of which the occupancy directly influences the target protein’s function. These requirements preclude many disease-causing proteins from being “druggable” targets, and these proteins are categorized as “undruggable”. The proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology provides powerful tools to degrade these “undruggable” targets and has become a promising approach for drug discovery. However, the PROTAC technology may have limitations and emerging new degrader technologies may greatly broaden the spectrum of targets that could be selectively degraded by harnessing another major degradation pathway in cells. Here we review a few key emerging technologies that exploit the lysosomal degradation pathway and discuss their potential applications as well as limitations.