The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 18, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 10, 1994
Masashi Yanagisawa, Dallas, TX (US);
Board of Regents, The University of Texas System, Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
Endothelin-1 (ET-1), a 21-residue vasoactive peptide, is produced in vascular endothelial cells from the 38-residue inactive intermediate, big endothelin-1 via a specific cleavage at Trp21-Val22. The protease that catalyzes the conversion, endothelin converting enzyme (ECE), constitutes a potential regulatory site for the production of the active peptide. Disclosed herein is the identification of ECE-1, a novel membrane-bound neutral Zn.sup.2+ metalloprotease that is expressed abundantly in endothelial cells in vivo, and structurally related to neutral endopeptidase 24.11 and Kell blood group protein. When transfected into cultured cells that normally secrete only big ET-1, the ECE-1 cDNA conferred the ability to secrete mature ET-1. In transfected cells, ECE-1 processes endogenously synthesized big ET-1 as well as exogenously supplied big ET-1, which interacts with ECE-1 on the cell surface. The remarkable specificity of ECE-1 provides a target for selective pharmacological intervention to alter ET-1 production in certain clinical disorders.