Discovery and biological evaluation of proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) as an EGFR degraders based on osimertinib and lenalidomide

Abstract Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is one of the important and valuable drug targets. Overexpression of EGFR is associated with the development of many types of cancer. In this study, three PROTACs small molecules (16a-16c) were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their cytotoxicity against the growth in different NSCLC cell line and the degradation effect. The bioassay results indicated that 16c has a good inhibition in PC9 cells and H1975 cells, and the corresponding IC50 value was 0.413 μM and 0.657 μM, respectively. Western blotting results demonstrated that compound 16c could serve as an effective EGFRdel 19 -targeting degrader in PC9 cells.