Bioresponsive lysosome-targeting chimeras for targeted protein degradation

Lysosome-mediated degradation of extracellular proteins represents an emerging therapeutic paradigm that exploits cellular waste-disposal machinery to eliminate pathogenic targets. Despite its promise, achieving selective degradation of disease-associated proteins remains constrained by the scarcity of discovering highly effective disease-specific lysosome-targeting receptors. To address this limitation, we engineered NeuroTAC, a lysosome-targeting chimera (LYTAC) that bridges a sortilin-binding ligand-neurotensin (NT) to a disease-specific antibody targeting proteins overexpressed in tumors and inflammatory disorders. NeuroTAC demonstrated robust degradation efficacy against both membrane-bound and extracellular proteins in experimental models. Leveraging the dysregulated activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a characteristic feature of tumor and inflammatory microenvironments, we further developed BioresTAC as an innovative bioresponsive LYTAC variant. This advanced construct integrates an MMP-cleavable linker and terminal RGD peptides, enabling MMP-triggered activation and spatial precision in MMP-enriched pathological niches. Systematic validation demonstrated that NeuroTAC and BioresTAC mediate broad-spectrum protein degradation with microenvironmental selectivity, enhancing therapeutic efficacy in cancer and psoriasis models. These findings advance the translational potential of lysosome-engaging biologics, offering a dual strategy for precision degradation through receptor recruitment and microenvironmental sensing. RNA sequencing indicated the differences in the gene expression profiles of HepG2 cells treated with LYTAC and those untreated, with three duplicate samples in each group.