1. Development and characterization of a Wee1 kinase degrader.
Li, Z., Pinch, B.J., Olson, C.M., Donovan, K.A., Nowak, R.P., Mills, C.E., Scott, D.A., Doctor, Z.M., Eleuteri, N.A., Chung, M. and Sorger, P.K., 2020. Cell chemical biology, 27(1), pp.57-65.
The G1/S cell cycle checkpoint is frequently dysregulated in cancer, leaving cancer cells reliant on a functional G2/M checkpoint to prevent excessive DNA damage. Wee1 regulates the G2/M checkpoint by phosphorylating CDK1 at Tyr15 to prevent mitotic entry. Previous drug development efforts targeting Wee1 resulted in the clinical-grade inhibitor, AZD1775. However, AZD1775 is burdened by dose-limiting adverse events, and has off-target PLK1 activity. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, we developed Wee1 degraders by conjugating AZD1775 to the cereblon (CRBN)-binding ligand, pomalidomide. The resulting lead compound, ZNL-02-096, degrades Wee1 while sparing PLK1, induces G2/M accumulation at 10-fold lower doses than AZD1775, and synergizes with Olaparib in ovarian cancer cells. We demonstrate that ZNL-02-096 has CRBN-dependent pharmacology that is distinct from AZD1775, which justifies further evaluation of selective Wee1 degraders.
2. Mapping the degradable kinome provides a resource for expedited degrader development.
Donovan, K.A., Ferguson, F.M., Bushman, J.W., Eleuteri, N.A., Bhunia, D., Ryu, S., Tan, L., Shi, K., Yue, H., Liu, X. and Dobrovolsky, D., 2020. Cell, 183(6), pp.1714-1731.
Targeted protein degradation (TPD) refers to the use of small molecules to induce ubiquitin-dependent degradation of proteins. TPD is of interest in drug development, as it can address previously inaccessible targets. However, degrader discovery and optimization remains an inefficient process due to a lack of understanding of the relative importance of the key molecular events required to induce target degradation. Here, we use chemo-proteomics to annotate the degradable kinome. Our expansive dataset provides chemical leads for ~200 kinases and demonstrates that the current practice of starting from the highest potency binder is an ineffective method for discovering active compounds. We develop multitargeted degraders to answer fundamental questions about the ubiquitin proteasome system, uncovering that kinase degradation is p97 dependent. This work will not only fuel kinase degrader discovery, but also provides a blueprint for evaluating targeted degradation across entire gene families to accelerate understanding of TPD beyond the kinome.
