Molecular glue in drugs

Most small molecule drugs bind to enzymes, receptors or ion channels, which possess binding pocket for drug occupation. However, the study of drugs that interfere with protein-protein interactions has always been a challenging subject. The discovery of molecular glues and degraders has opened an avenue to tackle this issue. With the structural features of bifunctional ligand molecular glues mediate the recognition and binding of two proteins. As a useful tool for chemical biology molecular glue can not only help to find probes to undruggable targets, but also can be developed into drugs through structure optimization in medicinal chemistry. This minireview concisely describes the features of molecular glue using a few existing drugs or active compounds.