Article
Author: Zhang, Manqi ; Tu, Jiahui ; Bian, Jinlei ; Zhang, Xuan ; Qiu, Zhixia ; Wang, Jubo ; Xu, Xi ; Shi, Shengnan ; Wu, Tizhi ; Zhang, Sai ; Gong, Guangyue ; Wu, Hongxi ; Liang, Yan ; Zhang, Zhisheng ; Ma, Mengyang ; Ali, Ahmed R ; Li, Zhiyu ; Huang, Bing
Hematopoietic progenitor kinase 1 (HPK1), a critical negative regulator of T-cell signaling, has emerged as an attractive yet challenging therapeutic target in immuno-oncology. Inspired by the clinical success of immunomodulatory drugs, we designed a series of novel proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) molecules targeting HPK1. Among these, compound D02 demonstrated potent HPK1 degradation (DC50 = 3.07 ± 1.81 nM, Dmax = 98.33 %) and effectively suppressed downstream phosphorylation of SLP-76 in Jurkat cells (IC50 = 11.38 nM). D02 potently induced IL-2 (EC50 = 4.51 nM) and IFN-γ (EC50 = 3.02 nM) secretion in human primary T cells. Notably, D02 exhibited favorable safety profiles in preliminary toxicological evaluations. We propose that D02 represents a promising candidate for further development of HPK1 degraders.