Researchers
at Stanford have developed a platform for targeted degradation of extracellular
or cell surface proteins via the lysosomal pathway. Many protein-directed
therapeutics act by obstructing target function or recruiting immune effectors.
However, these mechanisms do not work for many potential therapeutic targets.
Thus, new methods are needed for these "undruggable"
targets. New protein degradation technologies have been developed to try and
meet this need, but they only work on proteins with intracellular domains. Many
secreted and membrane proteins play key roles in a variety of diseases. Thus,
additional methods are needed to target extracellular and membrane proteins for
degradation. To help meet this need the inventors have developed the lysosome
targeting chimera (LYTAC) platform. LYTACs are conjugates capable of binding to
the cell surface lysosome targeting receptor and the extracellular domain of a
target protein.
