Method for making hormone heterodimers

摘要

The present invention relates to a method for preparing heterodimeric analogs of cysteine knot proteins. More specifically, the invention relates to a method for forming a subunit combination of a cysteine knot protein having an alpha-subunit and a beta-subunit to prepare a heterodimeric protein analog which comprises the steps of (a) attaching a dimerization domain to the amino termini of both an alpha-subunit and beta-subunit of a cysteine knot protein; and (b) dimerizing the alpha-subunit and beta-subunit to form a heterodimeric protein analog. In another embodiment, the invention relates to a method for forming a subunit combination of a cysteine knot protein having an alpha-subunit and a beta-subunit to prepare a heterodimeric protein analog which comprises the steps of (a) attaching a dimerization domain to the amino terminus of an alpha-subunit and the carboxy terminus of a beta-subunit of a cysteine knot protein; and (b) dimerizing the alpha-subunit and beta-subunit to form a heterodimeric protein analog.