Patent ID: 7247715

Claim:
A purified and isolated nucleic acid sequence having a nucleotide sequence encoding an A chain of a ricin-like toxin, a B chain of a ricin-like toxin and a heterologous linker amino acid sequence linking the A and B chains, the heterologous linker sequence containing a cleavage recognition site for a protease selected from the group consisting of: a cancer associated protease, an inflammatory-associated protease, a viral protease, a fungal protease, and a parasite protease, wherein the cleavage recognition site recognized by the cancer-associated protease is selected from the group consisting of: cathespin B, a matrix metalloproteinase, cathespin L, cathespin D, urokinase-type plasminogen activator, tissue-type plasminogen activator, human prostate-specific antigen, kallikrein, neutrophil elastase, and calpain and wherein the cleavage recognition site recognized by the parasitic protease is a Plasmodium falciparum protease and wherein the cleavage recognition site recognized by the viral protease is selected from the group consisting of: human cytomegalovirus, human herpes virus, varicella zoster virus, hepatitis A virus, hepatitis C virus, Epstein-Barr virus specific protease, and infectious laryngotracheitis virus and wherein the cleavage recognition site recognized by the fungal protease is a Candida acid protease.