Thiol protease inhibitor
AssigneeSandoz Ltd.
InventorsCamille Deluca-Flaherty, Victor J. Chan, Liliana E. C. Scarafia, Karen J. Brunke
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Abstract
A novel thiol protease inhibitor peptide is isolated from Diabrotica virgifera designated virgiferin. The DNA encoding virgiferin and modified virgiferin peptides are claimed. These sequences maybe cloned into vectors and used to transform plants conferring reduced susceptibility to damage by plant pests that have thiol proteases as digestive enzymes including insects and nematodes and particularly Coleopteran insects.
Claims22
An isolated thiol protease inhibitor peptide designated Virgiferin having the amino acid sequence extending from amino acid position 1 to 83 of SEQ ID NO.:
- 1 and a modified virgiferin peptide wherein said modified peptide comprises a peptide having at least 50% amino acid identity to virgiferin;
- truncations of virgiferin;
- or a peptide having at least 50% amino acid identity to the truncations of virgiferin wherein said modified virgiferin is functionally equivalent to said virgiferin protease inhibitor.
An isolated pre-virgiferin peptide characterized by the entire amino acid sequence given in SEQ ID NO.:
- 1 and peptides having at least 50% amino acid sequence identity thereto.
A homogenous protease inhibitor peptide characterized by a molecular weight of about 10-15 Kda on an SDS PAGE with binding affinity to papain type proteases.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.