The General Hospital Corporation

Alexander Kovtun

Brian Seed

Edward F Fritsch

Lin Sun

Elena Getmanova

Xinzhong Wang

Eun-Chung Park

Mason Wright Freeman

Masahiro Murakawa

Disclosed herein are methods and compositions related to engineered fragments of the human transglutaminase-related protein family, described herein as engineered transglutaminase barrel proteins (ETBPs), that have utility as high affinity, high selectivity target-binding proteins offering advantages as antibody equivalents for therapeutic, analytical, manufacturing and research purposes. ETBPs differ from naturally occurring human transglutaminase fragments by the addition, deletion, replacement and/or substitution of the naturally occurring amino acid sequence. ETBPs can be easily expressed in prokaryotic cells and in many cases can be purified by a simple solubilization and precipitation method.

Engineered transglutaminase barrel proteins

Disclosed are replicatable viral DNA vectors encoding a site-specific DNA-altering enzyme and a DNA target recognized by the enzyme, the enzyme selectively converting, in a cell expressing the enzyme, the DNA vector to a rearranged form. The invention further relates to methods for assembling recombinant adenoviral DNAs. These methods include the steps of: (a) providing a first linearized DNA vector including a restriction site and a cos site and a second linearized DNA vector including the restriction site, an adenoviral nucleic acid molecule, and a cos site; and (b) ligating the first and second linearized DNA vectors, the ligation assembling a recombinant adenoviral DNA.

Self-rearranging DNA vectors

Growing community of inventors

Stow, MA, United States of America

Alexander Kovtun