Ribonuclease recruitment using a small molecule reduced c9ALS/FTD r(G ₄ C ₂ ) repeat expansion in vitro and in vivo ALS models

Abstract

The most common cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia (c9ALS/FTD) is an expanded G₄C₂ RNA repeat [r(G₄C₂)^exp] in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (<i>C9orf72</i>), which elicits pathology through several mechanisms. Here, we developed and characterized a small molecule for targeted degradation of r(G₄C₂)^exp. The compound was able to selectively bind r(G₄C₂)^exp’s structure and to assemble an endogenous nuclease onto the target, provoking removal of the transcript by native RNA quality control mechanisms. In c9ALS patient–derived spinal neurons, the compound selectively degraded the mutant <i>C9orf72</i> allele with limited off-targets and reduced quantities of toxic dipeptide repeat proteins (DPRs) translated from r(G₄C₂)^exp. In vivo work in a rodent model showed that abundance of both the mutant allele harboring the repeat expansion and DPRs were selectively reduced by this compound. These results demonstrate that targeted small-molecule degradation of r(G₄C₂)^exp is a strategy for mitigating c9ALS/FTD-associated pathologies and studying disease-associated pathways in preclinical models.