Abstract 3354: Chemically induced degradation of the transcription factor BCL6

The transcription factor BCL6 is a known driver of oncogenesis in lymphoid malignancies, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Disruption of its interaction with transcriptional repressors interferes with the oncogenic effects of BCL6. We have used structure-based drug design to develop highly potent compounds that block this interaction. A subset of these inhibitors also cause rapid ubiquitylation and degradation of BCL6 in cells. These compounds display significantly stronger induction of expression of BCL6-repressed genes and antiproliferative effects than compounds that merely inhibited co-repressor interaction. The fact that the magnitude of effects elicited by this class of BCL6 degrading compounds greatly exceeds that of our equipotent non-degrading inhibitors offers exciting opportunities for the development of BCL6-based lymphoma therapeutics. To support further research, the most potent BCL6 degrading inhibitor is made freely available to the research community as an in vitro tool compound. Please see http://www.opnMe.com for further infos. Citation Format: Nina Kerres, Steffen Steurer, Stefanie Schlager, Gerd Bader, Maureen Caligiuri, Christian Dank, John R. Engen, Peter Ettmayer, Daniel Gerlach, Thomas Gerstberger, Bingsong Han, Roxana E. Iacob, Dirk Kessler, David R. Lancia, Mayer Moriz, Nikolai Mischerikow, Klaus Rumpel, Renate Schnitzer, Tilman Voss, Xiaozhang Zheng, Andreas Zoephel, Norbert Kraut, Darryl McConnell, Mark Pearson, Manfred Koegl. Chemically induced degradation of the transcription factor BCL6 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3354.