Nutritive fragments, proteins and methods

摘要

Nutritive proteins are provided. In some embodiments the nutritive proteins comprise a first polypeptide sequence comprising a fragment of a naturally-occurring nutritive protein. In some embodiments the fragment comprises at least one of a) an enhanced ratio of branch chain amino acid residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein; b) an enhanced ratio of leucine residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein; and c) an enhanced ratio of essential amino acid residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein. In some embodiments, the fragment comprises at least one of a) a ratio of branch chain amino acid residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein; b) a ratio of leucine residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein; and c) a ratio of essential amino acid residues to total amino acid residues present in the nutritive protein, that is equal to or greater than the corresponding ratio present in a benchmark protein such as whey, egg or soy protein. Also provided are nucleic acids encoding the proteins, recombinant microorganisms that make the proteins, methods of making the proteins using recombinant microorganisms, compositions that comprise the proteins, and methods of using the proteins, among other things.

主权项

1. A method of maintaining or increasing at least one of muscle mass, muscle strength, and muscle functional performance in a subject, the method comprising providing to the subject a sufficient amount of a nutritive composition comprising an isolated nutritive protein fragment comprising a polypeptide sequence that is at least about 80% homologous to a fragment of a naturally-occurring protein sequence over the total length of the isolated nutritive protein fragment, wherein the isolated nutritive protein fragment is at least 25 amino acids in length, wherein the isolated nutritive protein fragment is less than or equal to 150 amino acids in length, wherein the polypeptide sequence comprises a ratio of essential amino acid residues to total amino acid residues of at least 40%, a ratio of branch chain amino acid residues to total amino acid residues of at least 18% and a ratio of Leu residues to total amino acid residues of at least 8%, wherein the isolated nutritive protein fragment has an aqueous solubility at pH 7 of at least 50 g/L, and wherein the isolated nutritive protein fragment is present in the composition in an amount of at least about 1 gram.