Patent ID: 7960340

Claim:
A non-naturally occurring proteinaceous molecule having a cyclic cystine knot backbone and a defined biological activity detectable by assay, said proteinaceous molecule comprising: i) a peptide having said defined biological activity, wherein said peptide has an amino acid sequence comprising a plurality of contiguous amino acids, wherein said peptide is about 2 to 30 amino acid residues; and ii) a cystine knot backbone grafted to said peptide of step i), wherein said cyclic cystine knot backbone 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 may be the same or different; wherein d is about 1-2; wherein one or more of loops 1, 2, 3, 5 or 6 have an amino acid sequence comprising the sequence of said peptide of step i), wherein any loop comprising said sequence of said peptide of step i) comprises 2 to about 30 amino acids, and wherein for any of loops 1, 2, 3, 5, or 6 that do not contain said sequence of said peptide of step i), a, b, c, e, and f, may be the same or different, a may be any number from 3-10, and b, c, e, and f may be any number from 1 to 20.