Sumitomo Electric Industries, Limited

Biomaterial Research Institute Co., Ltd.

Biomedical Research Institute Co., Ltd.

Kyoko Takebe

Yohei Hirai

Makoto Takashina

Shogo Koshida

Yumiko Oka

Toko Shinagawa

Hokari Tsuda

Kayoko Murakami

Keiko Tochigi

The present invention provides oligopeptides having morphogenesis promoting activity and in particular, hair promoting activity. The oligopeptides may be in monomer form, monomer having a reactive substance bound form or as a polymer, such as a dimer including a homodimer; heterodimer; homotrimer; or heterodimer. The present invention also provides monoclonal antibodies that specifically recognize a 220 kDa antigen of epithelial new hair follicles; hybridomas producing such antibody; and methods and kits for assaying hair growth in mammalian subjects.

Oligopeptides for promoting hair growth

Novel physiologically active substance designated as epimorphin which is capable of being expressed by a gene hybridizing with a gene probe composed of the base sequence complementary to part of the base sequence of Sequence ID No. 1 in Sequence Listing, and which is produced by mesenchymal cells derived from human or mouse, and which shows morphogenetic activity of epithelial tissue, and isoforms of the epimorphin, base sequences encoding them, modified epimorphin, in which hydrophobic region at the carboxy terminal of the epimorphin polypeptide has been deleted or replaced by non-hydrophobic polypeptide, and polyclonal antibody or monoclonal antibody produced by the use of a full length or a part of the epimorphin as an antigen are provided. The substances of the present invention can be used for elucidation of the mechanism of diseases caused by abnormal epithelium formation, diagnosis of such diseases, or development of therapeutic methods therefor.

Physiologically active substance designated as epimorphin genes encoding

Novel physiologically active substance designated as epimorphin which is capable of being expressed by a gene hybridizing with a gene probe composed of the base sequence complementary to part of the base sequence of Sequence ID No. 1 in Sequence Listing, and which is produced by mesenchymal cells derived from human or mouse, and which shows morphogenetic activity of epithelial tissue, and isoforms of said epimorphin, base sequences encoding them, modified epimorphin, in which hydrophobic region at the carboxy terminal of said epimorphin polypeptide has been deleted or replaced by non-hydrophobic polypeptide, and polyclonal antibody or monoclonal antibody produced by the use of a full length or a part of said epimorphin as an antigen are provided. The substances of the present invention can be used for elucidation of the mechanism of diseases caused by abnormal epithelium formation, diagnosis of said diseases, or development of therapeutic methods therefor.

Epimorphin and its encoding nucleic acids

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Yokohama, Japan

Kyoko Takebe