Bis-met histones

摘要

The present invention provides a nucleic acid molecule which encodes a polypeptide consisting of two methionine residues as the first and second N-terminal amino acid residues linked via a peptide bond to a mature eukaryotic histone. The present invention furthermore relates to a vector containing said nucleic acid molecule, a host transformed with said vector, polypeptides encoded by the nucleic acid molecule and pharmaceutical and diagnostic compositions. The present invention also relates to the use of the nucleic acid molecule, vectors, hosts and the polypeptide of the invention for the preparation of a composition for the treatment of diseases. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method of testing for the presence of the nucleic acid molecule or the polypeptide in a sample and to a kit.

主权项

1. An isolated nucleic acid molecule which
a) encodes a polypeptide comprising
(aa) two methionine residues as the first and second N-terminal amino acid residues linked via a peptide bond to(ab) a mature eukaryotic H1 histone; or b) encodes a polypeptide comprising
(ba) two methionine residues as the first and second N-terminal amino acid residues linked via a peptide bond to(bb) a mature eukaryotic polypeptide having at least 90% sequence identity to the mature eukaryotic histone of SEQ ID NO: 7, SEQ ID NO: 9, SEQ ID NO: 11 or SEQ ID NO: 13 and retaining at least 20% of its biological activity; or c) hybridizes under highly stringent conditions to the complementary strand of a nucleic acid molecule encoding the polypeptide of (a) or (b), wherein said nucleic acid molecule encodes a polypeptide having at least the two N-terminal methionine residues and retains the biological activity of the polypeptide of (a) or (b), and wherein the highly stringent conditions comprise an incubation step at about 42° C. in a solutions comprising about 50% formamide, about 70 mM sodium chloride, and about 75 mM sodium citrate.