Method of improving the pharmacokinetic profile of a therapeutic polypeptide and the use thereof

A fusion protein comprising a therapeutic polypeptide (TP) fused to one or more pCloud sequences and a scaffold protein,

• wherein TP is human glucagon-like peptide or a functional variant thereof,
• the scaffold protein forms a homo-trimer in solution and is selected from the group consisting of human collagen noncollagenous (NC) domains which form stable homo-trimers in solution, and
• the pCloud sequence is a flexible un-structured polypeptide comprising some or all of the fragments of the human fibrinogen alpha chain;
• and
• wherein the pCloud polypeptide sequence:
• (a) comprises at least 100 to about 3000 amino acid residues;
• (b) comprises some or all of the fragments derived from human fibrinogen alpha chain;
• wherein the fibrinogen alpha chain fragments are flanked by flexible loops with various lengths from 1 to 100 amino acid residues;
• wherein the flexible loops are rich in glycine (G) and serine (S), the flexible loops may also contain glutamate (E), alanine (A), proline (P) and threonine (T), the flexible loops have greater than 95% unstructured random coil formation as determined by GOR algorithm;
• (c) is rich in glycine (G), serine (S) and glutamate (E), and optionally further comprising alanine (A), proline (P), arginine (R) and threonine (T), and wherein the sum of G, S, E, A, P and T amino acid residues constitutes more than 90% of the pCloud amino acid sequence;
• (d) has greater than 90% unstructured random coil formation as determined by GOR algorithm;
• and
• (e) does not contain a T-cell epitope as predicted by TEPITOPE algorithm;
• wherein the pCloud sequence can be at either or both of the N-terminal and the C-terminal end of the therapeutic polypeptide, and the pCloud sequences can optionally be placed at either or both of the N-terminal and the C-terminal end of the scaffold protein;
• and
• wherein the pCloud polypeptides can be identical or different to each other;
• wherein the fusion protein is configured, from N-terminus to C-terminus, using the following formula:
• (pCloud)m-TP-(pCloud)n-Scaffold-(pCloud)k, or
• (pCloud)m-Scaffold-(pCloud)n-TP-(pCloud)k
• wherein m is either 0 or 1, n is either 0 or 1, k is either 0 or 1, and m+n+k>=1, the digits indicate the number of presence of the designated polypeptides;
• wherein m is either 0 or 1, n is either 0 or 1, k is either 0 or 1, and m+n+k>=1, the digits indicate the number of presence of the designated polypeptides;
• and
• wherein the fusion protein exhibits an improved pharmacokinetic profile when administered to a subject compared with the TP by itself.