PATENT ABSTRACTS 285

moiety including an amide, thioether or disuhide linkage or a combination thereof, R3 is hydro- gen, methyl, bromine, fluorine or iodine, R4 is hydrogen, an acid-sensitive, base-stable blocking group of an acyl capping group, R5 is hydrogen or a phosphorus derivative, R6 is H, OH, or OR where R is a protecting group and x is an integer in the range of 1 and 8 inclusive. Methods of synthesizing the derivatizable nucleotide are disclosed, as are labeled poly- nucleotide probes prepared therefrom.

5093240

VARIANT AEQUORIN GENES AND PROCESS FOR PRODUCING VARIANT AEQUORIN PROTEINS

Satoshi Inouye, Kouichi Kurose, Yoshiyuki Sakaki, Yokohamashi, Japan assigned to Chisso Corporation

Various variants of photoprotein aequorin (pAQ440), useful for elucidating the mechanism of its luminescence and thereby extending the possibility of concrete applications of aequorin protein, and a process for producing variant ae- quorin proteins are provided, which variants are obtained by converting base(s) in a specified order of the base arrangement of aequorin gene into other base(s), or by deleting a certain bases in specified continued orders thereof, according to site-specific mutagenesis method.

5093241

C-TERMINAL CAT FUSION PROTEIN AND PROCESS OF

PREPARATION BY RECOMBINANT DNA PRODUCTION OF A

DEOXYRIBONUCLEOSIDE Alan D Bennett, Stephen K Rhind, Peter A Lowe, Christopher C G Hentschel, Berkshire, United Kingdom assigned to Celltech Ltd

Linda A Naylor, Durham, United Kingdom as- signed to Imperial Chemical Industries PLC

A process for the production of a fusion protein A process for the fermentative production of the comprising an active portion of a chloram- deoxyribonucleoside thymidine and/or its cor- phenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) protein and a responding base thymine by aerobically cul- polypeptide. The fusion protein may be purified tivating a strain of the genus Brevibacterium, in using CAT substrate affinity chromatography. particular one of the strains NCIMB 40117 and The eucaryotic polypeptide may be calcitonin or 40116. The produced thymidine may be used as a dervative thereof such as calcitonin-glycine, an intermediate in the production of azido- Other polypeptides described include enzymes thymidine and active ingredient in a composition such as chymosin, prochymosin and pre- for use in the treatment of auto imune deficiency prochymosin, hormones such as ACTH, in- syndrome (AIDS). Biologically pure cultures of sulins, and growth hormones and antigenic strain NCIMB 40014 and variants and mutants polypetides such as foot and mouth disease virus derived therefrom are claimed per se.

antigenic polypetide. The fusion protein may be cleaved at a site susceptible to selective enzymic or chemical cleavage to produce free poly- peptide. The fusion protein may be used as an immunogen.

5093242

METHODS OF GENERATING DESIRED AMINO-TERMINAL

RESIDUES IN PROTEINS

Andreas Bachmair, Daniel Finley, Alexande Varshavsky, Cologne, MA, Federal Republic Of Germany assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A method of designing or modifying protein structure at the protein or genetic level to pro- duce specified amino-termini in vivo are described. The method can be used to alter the metabolic stability and other properties of the protein or, alternatively, to artificially generate authentic amino-termini in proteins produced through artificial means. The method is based upon the introduction of the use of artificial ubiquitin-protein fusions, and the discovery that the in vivo half-life of a protein is a function of the amino-terminal amino acid of the protein,

5093244