TRIMERISING POLYPEPTIDES, THEIR MANUFACTURE AND USE

摘要

Polypeptides comprising a collectin neck region, or variant or derivative thereof or amino acid sequence having the same or a similar amino acid pattern and/or hydrophobicity profile, are able to trimerise. Such polypeptides may comprise additional amino acids which may include heterologous amino acids, for example forming a protein domain or derived from an immunoglobulin or comprising an amino acid which may be derivatised for attachment of a non-peptide moiety such as oligosaccharide, and may form homotrimers or heterotrimers. Heterotrimerisation may be promoted by gentle heating, e.g. to about 50 DEG C, then cooling to room temperature. One use for the polypeptides is in seeding collagen formation. Nucleic acid encoding the polypeptides and methods of their production are provided.