A covalent glue recruits MKRN2 to degrade RPS7 in p53-deficient lung cancer
- A covalent molecular glue is reported to engage the E3 ligase MKRN2 and drive degradation of the ribosomal protein RPS7.
- The effect induces synthetic lethality in p53-deficient non-small cell lung cancer cells.
- Only the title and issue details were accessible when this was written, so mechanistic and in vivo details are not covered here.
💡 Points
Two things stand out: the E3 is MKRN2, far from the usual CRBN/VHL set, and the substrate is a ribosomal protein, so the p53-deficient dependency is a stress-pathway story rather than classic target loss. Covalent engagement of a non-canonical ligase is attractive for novelty but raises selectivity-proteomics questions I'd want answered before taking it seriously.