Kelm, Jeremy M.Pandey, Deepti S.Malin, EvanKansou, HusseinArora, SahilKumar, RajGavande, Navnath S.2024-01-212024-08-132024-01-212024-08-132023-03-301476459810.1186/s12943-022-01707-5http://10.2.3.109/handle/32116/3597Molecularly targeted cancer therapies substantially improve patient outcomes, although the durability of their effectiveness can be limited. Resistance to these therapies is often related to adaptive changes in the target oncoprotein which reduce binding affinity. The arsenal of targeted cancer therapies, moreover, lacks coverage of several notorious oncoproteins with challenging features for inhibitor development. Degraders are a relatively new therapeutic modality which deplete the target protein by hijacking the cellular protein destruction machinery. Degraders offer several advantages for cancer therapy including resiliency to acquired mutations in the target protein, enhanced selectivity, lower dosing requirements, and the potential to abrogate oncogenic transcription factors and scaffolding proteins. Herein, we review the development of proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) for selected cancer therapy targets and their reported biological activities. The medicinal chemistry of PROTAC design has been a challenging area of active research, but the recent advances in the field will usher in an era of rational degrader design. � 2023, This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.en-USHumansNeoplasmsOncogene ProteinsProteolysisTranscription FactorsUbiquitin-Protein LigasesAbelson kinaseanaplastic lymphoma kinasebreakpoint cluster region proteinBRG1 proteinBRM proteinBruton tyrosine kinaseCD135 antigencyclin dependent kinase 9epidermal growth factor receptorestrogenestrogen related receptor alphafocal adhesion kinaseinterleukin 1 receptor associated kinase 4K ras proteinnicotinamide adenine dinucleotide adenosine diphosphate ribosyltransferase 1oncoproteinproteasomeprotein bcl xlprotein tyrosine phosphatase SHP 2proteolysis targeting chimeraSTAT3 proteinubiquitinoncoproteintranscription factorubiquitin protein ligasebiological activitycancer therapydrug designdrug developmenthumanmedicinal chemistrynonhumanprotein degradationReviewgeneticsmetabolismneoplasmprotein degradationReviewhttps://molecular-cancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12943-022-01707-5