Bimer or an oligomer of a dimer, trimer, quadromer or pentamer of recombinant fusion proteins

Abstract

The invention relates to oligomers of a dimer, trimer, quatromer or pentamer of recombinant fusion proteins. Said oligomers are characterized in that the recombinant fusion proteins have at least one component A and at least one component B, whereby component A contains a protein or a protein segment with a biological function, in particular with a ligand function for antibodies, for soluble or membranous signal molecules, for receptors or an antibody, or an antibody segment, and component B contains a protein or a protein segment which dimerizes or oligomerizes the dimer, trimer, quatromer or pentamer of the recombinant fusion protein, without the action of third-party molecules. The invention also relates to the use of dimers or oligomers of this type for producing a medicament, to the fusion proteins which cluster in dimers or oligomers and to their DNA sequence and expression vectors or host cells comprising this DNA sequence.

1 - 28 . (canceled)  
     
     
         29 . A fusion protein comprising the extracellular domain of a receptor of the TNF family, fused to an oligomerising domain of a protein selected from the group consisting of the cartilage oligomeric protein (COMP) and the cartilage matrix protein (CMP).  
     
     
         30 . The fusion protein of  claim 29 , wherein the receptor of the TNF family is selected from the group consisting of Fas, TRAIL-R1, TRAIL-R2, TRAILR-3, TNF-R1 and CD40.  
     
     
         31 . A pentamer of a fusion protein comprising the extracellular domain of a receptor of the TNF family, fused to an oligomerising domain of the cartilage oligomeric protein (COMP).  
     
     
         32 . The pentamer of  claim 31 , wherein the receptor of the TNF family is Fas.  
     
     
         33 . The pentamer of  claim 31 , wherein the receptor of the TNF family is CD40.  
     
     
         34 . A DNA sequence encoding the fusion protein according to  claim 29 .  
     
     
         35 . An expression vector containing the DNA sequence according to  claim 34 .  
     
     
         36 . A host cell transfected with an expression vector according to  claim 35.