Methods to characterize and discover molecular degraders in cells

Abstract

Cells use many post-translational modifications (PTMs) to tailor proteins and transduce cellular signals. Recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of small molecule and enzymatic strategies to purposely manipulate one particular PTM, ubiquitination, on desired target proteins in cells. These approaches typically act by induced proximity between an E3 ligase and a target protein resulting in ubiquitination and degradation of the substrate in cells. In this review, we cover recent approaches to study molecular degraders and discover their induced substrates in vitro and in live cells. Methods that have been adapted and applied to the development of molecular degraders are described, including global proteomics, affinity-purification, chemical proteomics and enzymatic strategies. Extension of these strategies to edit additional PTMs in cells is also discussed. This review is intended to assist researchers who are interested in editing PTMs with new modalities to select suitable method(s) and guide their studies.