Nucleic acids encoding neural axon outgrowth modulators

US5565331A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• The Regents of the University of California · US

Inventors

• Marc Tessier-Lavigne · San Mateo, US
• Tito Serafini · San Francisco, US
• Timothy Kennedy · Montréal, CA
• Merysia Placzek · London, GB
• Thomas Jessell · New York, US
• Jane Dodd · New York, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Nov 12, 1993
• Grant date: Oct 15, 1996
• Expiry date: Nov 12, 2013

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01N2500/04
• WIPO field: Pharmaceuticals
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

A novel classes of neural axon outgrowth promoting and orienting proteins, nucleic acids encoding such proteins and receptors which selectively bind such proteins are disclosed. The disclosed neural axon outgrowth promoting and orienting proteins include the laminin-related p75/p78 family; a family of vertebrate proteins which promote axon outgrowth and/or orientation, and p75/p78 family-specific receptors, including receptors found on spinal nerve axons, especially growth cones. Also disclosed are agents including peptides derived from the disclosed neural axon outgrowth promoting proteins capable of effecting axon outgrowth, orientation and regeneration. These agents provide small molecular weight modulators of nerve cell growth useful in the treatment of neurological disease and injury. The disclosed compositions also find use variously in screening chemical libraries for regulators of axon outgrowth and orientation, in genetic mapping, as probes for related genes, as diagnostic reagents for genetic neurological disease and in the production of specific cellular and animal systems for the development of neurological disease therapy.