Patent ID: 7632803

Claim:
A pharmaceutical composition comprising a pharmaceutically-acceptable carrier and a linear metal-binding peptide which does not have a metal ion bound to it, the sequence of the peptide being: P 1 -P 2 , wherein: P 1 is: Xaa 1 Xaa 2 His or Xaa 1 Xaa 2 His Xaa 3 ; Xaa 1 is glycine, alanine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, serine, threonine, aspartic acid, isoaspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid, isoglutamic acid, glutamine, lysine, hydroxylysine, histidine, arginine, ornithine, phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, cysteine, methionine, or α-hydroxymethylserine, and the only substituents on the α-amino group of Xaa 1 are hydrogen; Xaa 2 is glycine, alanine, β-alanine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, serine, threonine, aspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid, glutamine, lysine, hydroxylysine, histidine, arginine, ornithine, phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, cysteine, methionine, or α-hydroxymethylserine; and Xaa 3 is glycine, alanine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, histidine, arginine, ornithine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, asparagine, glutamine or tryptophan; and P 2 is a peptide sequence which comprises a sequence of a Cu(I) binding site, and P 2 contains no more than 10 amino acids; or a physiologically-acceptable salt of the peptide.