Jelina Basnet, Samar Rezq, Alexandra M Huffman, Tolulope E Asala, Licy L Yanes Cardozo, Damian G Romero
Endocrinology, Volume 166, Issue 7, July 2025, bqaf091
https://doi.org/10.1210/endocr/bqaf091
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder in reproductive-age women. Hyperandrogenemia (HA) is a hallmark of PCOS and is positively associated with metabolic complications. Androgens exert their biological actions through the androgen receptor (AR), which regulates transcriptional activity. Antiandrogens are not recommended for managing metabolic complications in PCOS due to their hepatotoxicity, despite being a viable therapy to treat HA. We hypothesized that the novel AR Proteolysis Targeting Chimera (PROTAC) degrader ARV-110 would downregulate AR protein levels and actions to abolish or mitigate HA-mediated metabolic complications using a well-established HA mouse model of PCOS.
Three-week-old female mice were implanted with dihydrotestosterone (DHT) or control pellets. Four weeks later, mice were treated with low- (ARV-110-L, 1 mg/kg.day) or high-dose (ARV-110-H, 10 mg/kg.day) ARV-110 for an additional 8 weeks.
ARV-110 dose-dependently reduced AR protein levels in white adipose tissue (WAT), kidney, liver, and ovary. ARV-110 attenuated DHT-induced increases in body weight, fat mass, kidney mass, WAT mass, circulating leptin and antimüllerian hormone, and altered glucose homeostasis. ARV-110-H increased kidney (UACR, KIM-1, NGAL) and liver (ALT, AST, LDH) injury markers and caused severe hepatomegaly, while ARV-110-L mostly spared those deleterious effects. Unbiased proteomics analysis revealed that ARV-110-H treatment severely affected the liver proteome and dysregulated multiple signaling and metabolic canonical pathways, while only minimal effects were observed with ARV-110-L treatment.
In summary, our findings underscore the potential of AR PROTACs as a novel therapeutic approach for managing metabolic complications in PCOS, provided the dosing is carefully optimized to avoid adverse effects.
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