Patent ID: 8242250

Claim:
An isolated nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence of nucleotides encoding a linear precursor form of a cystine knot polypeptide operably linked to a heterologous promoter, wherein said cystine knot polypeptide in its mature form comprises the structure: wherein C 1 to C 6 are cysteine residues; wherein each of C 1 and C 4 , C 2 and C 5 , and C 3 and C 6 are connected by a disulfide bond to form a cystine knot; wherein each X represents an amino acid residue in a loop, wherein said amino acid residues are the same or different; wherein d is about 1-2; wherein for a, b, c, e, and f, and i) a is any number from 3-10, and ii) b, c, e, and f is any number from 1 to 20.