By Donald Zuhn ---
On Wednesday, Cell Signaling Technology, Inc. announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for its application entitled "Immunoaffinity Isolation of Modified Peptides from Complex Mixtures." A search of Public PAIR indicates that U.S. Application No. 10/175,486 will issue as Patent No. 7,198,896. The '896 patent will be the fourth U.S. patent to be awarded to the Danvers, Massachusetts-based biotech company.
According to the statement released by Cell Signaling Technology, the allowed claims "cover[] the selective isolation of a target population of post-translationally modified peptides from a complex mixture of peptides by using immobilized modification-specific antibodies, followed by mass spectrometric determination of modification sites and parent protein identification." The company's release also states that the patented technology is commercialized under the trademarks PhosphoScan®, which enables the discovery of cell and tissue phospho-profiles, and AcetylScan®, for acetylation profiling.
The '896 patent claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/299,893, filed June 21, 2001, and 60/337,012, filed November 8, 2001, as well as continuation-in-part Application Nos. 09/535,364, filed March 24, 2000, and 09/148,712, filed September 4, 1998. Representative independent claim 1 of the '486 application recites:
1. A method for isolating a target population of naturally-occurring post-translationally
modified peptides from a complex mixture of peptides, said method comprising the
steps of:
(a) obtaining a digested proteinaceous preparation from an organism, wherein said digested proteinaceous preparation comprises a complex mixture of peptides comprising naturally-occurring post-translationally modified peptides from two or more different proteins;
(b) contacting said digested proteinaceous preparation with at least one immobilized post-translational modification-specific antibody; and
(c) isolating said target population of naturally-occurring post-translationally modified peptides specifically bound by said immobilized modification-specific antibody in step (b).
According to Cell Signaling Technology's statement, the patented technology was first described in Rush et al., 2005, Nat. Biotechnol. 23:94-101, and is the subject of collaborative projects with AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb & Co., Novartis, and Dr. Brian Druker of Oregon Health Sciences University.
Cell Signaling Technology also announced on Wednesday that it had formed an alliance with Merck in which Cell Signaling Technology would provide its patented PhosphoScan® technology for use in Merck's oncology therapeutic research programs.
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