Claims
- 1. A composition comprising a human IL-18 in crystalline form.
- 2. The composition of claim 1 wherein said human IL-18 is an essentially pure native form or a homolog thereof.
- 3. The composition according to claim 1,
wherein said composition has one or more patches of its surface in contact with its receptor; wherein said patches are lined by two groups of amino acid residues; wherein said first group comprises Lys4-Gln18, Phe 30-Asp37, Pro107-Lys112, Lys128-Leu 135 and Aspl45-Ile148; wherein said second group comprises Lys1-Lys8, Ser50-Ser55, Pro89-Lys93, Gln103-Ser105, and Glu155-Asp156.
- 4. A heavy atom derivative of the composition in claim 1 wherein said derivative comprises a protein having the coordinates in Table I and in FIGS. 1-4.
- 5. The composition according to claim 1 wherein said human IL-18 is characterized by a β-trefoil fold.
- 6. A process of identifying an agonist or an antagonist molecule comprising an entity selected from the group consisting of: a peptide, a non-peptide molecule and a chemical compound;
wherein said molecule is capable of enhancing, eliciting or blocking the biological activity resulting from interaction with the human IL-18 and its receptor; wherein said process comprises:
introducing into a suitable computer program parameters defining an interacting surface based on the conformation of human IL-18 corresponding to the coordinates of FIGS. 1-4 and Table I; wherein said program displays the three-dimensional structure thereof; creating a three-dimensional structure of a test compound in said computer program; displaying an superimposing the model of said test compound on the model. assessing whether said test compound model fits spatially into the binding site; incorporating said test compound in a biological cytokine activity assay; and determining whether said test compound inhibits or enhances the biological activity of human IL-18.
- 7. A process of identifying an agonist or an antagonist capable of modifying the biological activity of the composition of claim 1, wherein said process comprises:
carrying out an in vitro assay by introducing said compound into a biological cytokine activity assay mixture; and determining whether said test compound inhibits or enhances the biological activity of human IL-18 receptor.
- 8. A molecule identified by the method of claims 6 or 7 wherein said molecule is selected from a group consisting of: a peptide, a peptidomimetic and a synthetic compound.
- 9. The molecule of claim 8 that is selected from a group consisting of: an antagonist and an agonist.
- 10. A method of determining a crystal structure comprising using the structural coordinates of a human IL-18 crystal or portions thereof and determining the structure coordinates of a mutant, homologue or co-complex of said human IL-18 by molecular replacement.
- 11. A method of drug design comprising the use of the atomic coordinates of a human IL-18 crystal to computationally evaluate a chemical entity for association with the receptor binding site of human IL-18.
- 12. The method according to claim 11 wherein said entity is an agonist or an antagonist of human IL-18.
- 13. The method of drug design according to claim 11 comprising the steps of using the structure coordinates of human IL-18 to identify an intermediate in a chemical reaction between human IL-18 and a compound which is a ligand of said human IL-18.
- 14. The method according to one of claims 11-13, wherein said structure coordinates comprises the coordinates of FIGS. 1-4 and Table I.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims priority to the earlier provisional U.S. application Serial No. 60/373,293, which was filed on Apr. 17, 2002, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Provisional Applications (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
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60373293 |
Apr 2002 |
US |