Small molecule molecular glues can nucleate protein complexes and rewire interactomes. Molecular glues are widely used as probes for understanding functional proximity at a systems level, and the potential to instigate event-driven pharmacology has motivated their application as therapeutics. Despite advantages such as cell permeability and the potential for low off-target activity, glues are still rare when compared to canonical inhibitors in therapeutic development. Their often simple structure and specific ability to reshape protein-protein interactions pose several challenges for widespread, designer applications. Molecular glue discovery and design campaigns can find inspiration from the fields of synthetic biology and biophysics to mine chemical libraries for glue-like molecules.

小分子分子胶可以使蛋白质复合物成核并重新连接相互作用组。分子胶被广泛用作在系统水平上了解功能接近性的探针，并且激发事件驱动药理学的潜力推动了它们作为治疗学的应用。尽管具有细胞渗透性和低脱靶活性潜力等优点，但与治疗开发中的经典抑制剂相比，胶仍然很少见。它们通常简单的结构和重塑蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用的特定能力给广泛的设计应用带来了一些挑战。分子胶的发现和设计活动可以从合成生物学和生物物理学领域寻找灵感，挖掘胶类分子的化学库。