Use of coiled-coil structural scaffold to generate structure-specific peptides

Abstract From the Canadian patent

This invention relates to the use of a coiled-coil structural scaffold to generate structure-specific peptides, including synthetic peptides derived from naturally occurring proteins of various origin. The structure of the synthetic peptides utilizes a scaffold of heptad repeat units into which epitopes from coiled- coil regions of native proteins are spliced. In particular, the synthetic peptides may be based on microbial proteins especially surface proteins, which occur naturally in the coiled-coil form such as pneumococcal surface proteins A and C. The synthetic peptides are immunogenic and can be used to elicit an immune response in an animal. Accordingly, they are useful as …