Patent ID: 7345021

Claim:
A family of PR-39 derived oligopeptides whose members individually cause a selective inhibition of proteasome-mediated degradation for at least one identifiable peptide in-situ after introduction intracellularly to a viable cell, each member of said PR-39 derived oligopeptide family consists of: a peptide of 8 to 11 amino acid residues in length with the N-terminal amino acid sequence of Arg-Arg-Arg-Pro-Arg-Pro-Pro-Tyr (SEQ ID NO:5); a peptide which is devoid of the amino acid residue sequences Pro-Pro-X-X-Pro-Pro-X-X-Pro (SEQ ID NO:15) and Pro-Pro-X-X-X-Pro-Pro-X-X-Pro (SEQ ID NO:16) where X is any amino acid; a peptide able to be introduced intracellularly to a viable cell; a peptide able to interact selectively in-situ with such proteasomes as are present within the cytoplasm of the cell; and a peptide able to alter markedly the proteolytic degradation of at least one identifiable peptide mediated by said interacting proteasomes such that an increased expression of said identifiable peptide occurs in-situ.