Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 18, 2026

An Integrated System to Remotely Trigger Intracellular Signal Transduction by Upconversion Nanoparticle-mediated Kinase Photoactivation
Published on: August 30, 2017
Light-Induced Protein Degradation with Photocaged PROTACs
Gang Xue1, Kun Wang2, Danli Zhou1
1State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Engineering Laboratory for Chiral Drug Synthesis, School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Shenzhen Graduate School , Peking University , Shenzhen 518055 , China.
Abstract:
Induction of protein degradation is emerging as a powerful strategy to modulate protein functions and alter cellular signaling pathways. Proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) have been used to degrade a range of diverse proteins in vitro and in vivo. Here we present a type of photo-caged PROTACs (pc-PROTACs) to induce degradation activity with light. Photo-removable blocking groups were added to a degrader of Brd4, and the resulting molecule pc-PROTAC1 showed potent degradation activity in live cells only after light irradiation. Furthermore, this molecule efficiently degraded Brd4 and induced expected phenotypic changes in zebrafish. Additionally, this approach was successfully applied to construct pc-PROTAC3 of BTK. Thus, a general strategy to induce protein degradation with light was established to augment the chemists' toolbox to study disease-relevant protein targets.
Related Concept Videos
Regulated Protein Degradation
Protein degradation plays two important roles in the cells. It helps to protect cells from misfolded or damaged proteins before they lead to a...
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Protein Dynamics in Living Cells
Fluorescent recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) is a fluorescent-protein-based detection technique used to quantify protein movement rates within the cell. This method exposes a small portion of the cell to an intense laser beam. The laser beam causes permanent photobleaching of the fluorophore-tagged proteins in the exposed region. As the bleached...

