Muteins of tear lipocalin and methods for obtaining the same

A method for reducing angiogenesis in a subject suffering from a disease or disorder related to abnormal blood vessel growth, comprising administering to the subject a mutein of human tear lipocalin having detectable binding affinity to a given non-natural ligand, or a pharmaceutical composition comprising such mutein, wherein at least one of the cysteine residues occurring at sequence positions corresponding to positions 61 and 153 of the linear wild type amino acid sequence of mature human tear lipocalin (SEQ ID NO:

• 71) is replaced by another amino acid residue and wherein at least 12 mutated amino acid residues are present at any of the sequence positions corresponding to positions 26-34, 56-58, 80, 83, 104-106, and 108 of the linear wild type amino acid sequence of mature human tear lipocalin, wherein the non-natural ligand is vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGF-R2).