Patent ID: 6987172

Claim:
A glycosylated or nonglycosylated proteinaceous compound having agonist activity for at least one glycoprotein hormone, and having a structure selected from the group consisting of β 1 -(linker 1 ) n 1 -β 2 (linker 2 ) n 2 -β 3 -(linker 3 ) n 3 -α (1); β 1 -(linker 1 ) n 1 -β 2 -(linker 2 ) n 2 -α-(linker 3 ) n 3 -β 3 (2); β 1 -(linker 1 ) n 1 -α-(linker 2 ) n 2 -β 2 -(linker 3 ) n 3 -β 3 (3); and α-(linker 1 ) n 1 -β 1 -(linker 2 ) n 2 -β 2 -(linker 3 ) n 3 -β 3 (4) wherein α is the α subunit of a vertebrate glycoprotein hormone or a variant thereof that binds to the corresponding glyco protein hormone receptor; each β is independently a glycoprotein β subunit or a variant thereof; each “linker” is a hydrophilic, flexible spacer equivalent to a peptide containing 1–100 amino acid residues; and each n is a 0 or 1; said compound optionally comprising one or more additional β x (linker x ) n x and/or one or more additional α glycoprotein hormone subunits.