Patent ID: 6475796
Filing Date: 2002-11-05
Classification: A61K,A61P,C07K

Abstract:
A method of enhancing the biological activity of a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) originally having a cysteine (C) residue at a position corresponding to amino acid position 116 of the 121 amino acids long native mature human VEGF (hVEGF121) (position 142 of SEQ ID NO: 2) and an N-linked glycosylation site at a position corresponding to amino acid positions 75-77 of hVEGF121 (positions 101-103 of SEQ ID NO: 2), comprising (a) eliminating said cysteine (C) residue and removing said N-linked glycosylation site by site-directed mutagenesis of the encoding nucleic acid sequence to produce a VEGF variant, said variant having at least 85% sequence identity with the native mature hVEGF121 polypeptide (amino acids 27-147 of SEQ ID NO: 2), and (b) determining the biological activity of said VEGF variant relative to the said hVEGF121 to confirm the enhancement of biological activity.