Article
作者: Barnes, S. Whitney ; Fodor, Barna D. ; Knehr, Judith ; Terranova, Remi ; Burke, Ashley ; Patterson, Andrew W. ; Bradner, James E. ; Altorfer, Marc ; Reyes, Alejandro ; Dranoff, Glenn ; Hinman, Amelia E. ; Paulk, Joshiawa ; Stevenson, Susan C. ; Wang, Jian ; Taraszka, John ; Beckwith, Rohan E. J. ; Ting, Pamela Y. ; Clifton, Matthew C. ; Ma, Xiaolei ; Solomon, Jonathan M. ; Wu, Fabian ; Dovala, Dustin ; Niu, Wei ; Hachey, Amanda ; Ornelas, Elizabeth ; Cobb, Jennifer S. ; Mao, Xiaohong ; Dales, Natalie A. ; Kerrigan, John Ryan ; Lin, James ; Pizzato, Nicolas ; Savage, Nikolas A. ; Thomsen, Noel M. ; Ware, Nathaniel F. ; Aghania, Eamon ; Borikar, Sneha ; Chitnis, Shripad ; Belew, Muluken S. ; Sanchez, Carina C. ; Wagner, Jürgen ; Bouwmeester, Tewis
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a prevalent, life-threatening condition attributable to a heritable mutation in β-hemoglobin. Therapeutic induction of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) can ameliorate disease complications and has been intently pursued. However, safe and effective small-molecule inducers of HbF remain elusive. We report the discovery of dWIZ-1 and dWIZ-2, molecular glue degraders of the WIZ transcription factor that robustly induce HbF in erythroblasts. Phenotypic screening of a cereblon (CRBN)–biased chemical library revealed WIZ as a previously unknown repressor of HbF. WIZ degradation is mediated by recruitment of WIZ(ZF7) to CRBN by dWIZ-1, as resolved by crystallography of the ternary complex. Pharmacological degradation of WIZ was well tolerated and induced HbF in humanized mice and cynomolgus monkeys. These findings establish WIZ degradation as a globally accessible therapeutic strategy for SCD.