Drug – bio-affecting and body treating compositions – Designated organic active ingredient containing – Carbohydrate doai
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-24
2001-04-24
Schwartzman, Robert A. (Department: 1635)
Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions
Designated organic active ingredient containing
Carbohydrate doai
C435S375000, C536S024500
Reexamination Certificate
active
06221849
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to modulation of gene expression. In particular, the invention relates to modulation of gene expression of the gene encoding DNA methyltransferase, and to modulation of gene expression that is regulated by the enzyme DNA methyltransferase.
2. Summary of the Related Art
Modulation of gene expression has become an increasingly important approach to understanding various cellular processes and their underlying biochemical pathways. Such understanding enriches scientific knowledge and helps lead to new discoveries of how aberrancies in such pathways can lead to serious disease states. Ultimately, such discoveries can lead to the development of effective therapeutic treatments for these diseases.
One type of cellular process that is of particular interest is how the cell regulates the expression of its genes. Aberrant gene expression appears to be responsible for a wide variety of inherited genetic disorders, and has also been implicated in numerous cancers and other diseases. Regulation of gene expression is a complex process, and many aspects of this process remain to be understood. One of the mysteries of this process resides in the fact that while the genetic information is the same in all tissues that constitute a multicellular organism, the expression of functions encoded by the genome varies significantly in different tissues.
In some cases, tissue-specific transcription factors are known to play a role in this phenomenon. (See Maniatis et al., Science 236: 1237-1245 (1987); Ingarham et al., Annual Review of Physiology 52: 773-791 (1990). However, several important cases exist that cannot be readily explained by the action of transcription factors alone. For example, Midgeon, Trends Genet. 10: 230-235 (1994), teaches that X-inactivation involves the inactivation of an allele of a gene that resides on the inactive X-chromosome, while the allele on the active X-chromosome continues to be expressed. In addition, Peterson and Sapienza, Annu. Rev. Genet. 27: 7-31 (1993), describes “parental imprinting”, where an allele of a gene that is inherited from one parent is active and the other allele inherited from the other parent is inactive. In both of these cases, both alleles exist in an environment containing the same transcription factors, yet one allele is expressed and the other is silent. Thus, something other than transcription factors must be involved in these phenomena.
Investigators have been probing what type of “epigenetic information” may be involved in this additional control of the expression pattern of the genome. Holliday, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. Biol. Sci. 326: 329-338 (1990) discusses the possible role for DNA methylation in such epigenetic inheritance. DNA contains a set of modifications that is not encoded in the genetic sequence, but is added covalently to DNA using a different enzymatic machinery. These modifications take the form of methylation at the 5 position of cytosine bases in CpG dinucleotides. Numerous studies have suggested that such methylation may well be involved in regulating gene expression, but its precise role has remained elusive. For example, Lock et al., Cell 48: 39-46 (1987), raises questions about whether the timing of hypermethylation and X-inactivation is consistent with a causal role for methylation. Similarly, Bartolomei et al., Genes Dev. 7: 1663-1673 (1993) and Brandeis et al., EMBO J. 12: 3669-3677 (1993), disclose timing/causation questions for the role of methylation in parental imprinting.
Some of the shortcomings of existing studies of the role of DNA methylation in gene expression reside in the tools that are currently available for conducting the studies. Many studies have employed 5-azaC to inhibit DNA methylation. However, 5-azaC is a nucleoside analog that has multiple effects on cellular mechanisms other than DNA methylation, thus making it difficult to interpret data obtained from these studies. Similarly, 5-azadC forms a mechanism based inhibitor upon integration into DNA, but it can cause trapping of DNA methyltransferase (hereinafter, DNA MeTase) molecules on the DNA, resulting in toxicities that may obscure data interpretation.
More recently, Szyf et al., J. Biol. Chem. 267: 12831-12836 (1995), discloses a more promising approach using expression of antisense RNA complementary to the DNA MeTase gene to study the effect of methylation on cancer cells. Szyf and von Hofe, U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,716, discloses the use of antisense oligonucleotides complementary to the DNA MeTase gene to inhibit tumorigenicity. These developments have provided powerful new tools for probing the role of methylation in numerous cellular processes. In addition, they have provided promising new approaches for developing therapeutic compounds that can modulate DNA methylation. One limitation to these approaches is that their effect is not immediate, due to the half life of DNA MeTase enzyme. Thus, although the expression of DNA MeTase is modulated, residual DNA MeTase enzyme can continue to methylate DNA until such residual enzyme is degraded. Polysome-associated DNA MeTase mRNA may also persist for some time, allowing additional translation to produce additional DNA MeTase enzyme. There is, therefore, a need for new antisense oligonucleotides which can act against intron regions of DNA MeTase RNA in the nucleus before its processing and association with polysomes. The development of such oligonucleotides will require obtaining sequence information about the non-coding regions of DNA MeTase RNA.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides recombinant nucleic acids comprising nucleic acid sequences from the genomic DNA methyltransferase gene (DNA MeTase). The invention also provides recombinant nucleic acids comprising nucleic acid sequences complementary to the genomic DNA MeTase gene. The invention further provides sequence information for such nucleic acid sequences. In addition, the invention provides antisense oligonucleotides complementary to special target regions of the genomic DNA MeTase gene or its RNA transcript. Finally, the invention provides methods for using such antisense oligonucleotides as analytical and diagnostic tools, as potentiators of transgenic plant and animal studies and for gene therapy approaches, and as potential therapeutic agents.
In a first aspect, the invention provides novel recombinant nucleic acid sequences comprising at least one nucleotide sequence selected from the nucleotide sequences of the genomic DNA MeTase gene. The sequence of the sense strand of the genomic DNA MeTase gene is shown in FIG.
1
. The nucleotide sequence of the sense strand of the DNA MeTase gene is also set forth in the Sequence Listings as SEQ ID NO 1, SEQ ID NO 2, SEQ ID NO 3, SEQ ID NO 4, SEQ ID NO 5, SEQ ID NO 6, SEQ ID NO 7, SEQ ID NO 8, SEQ ID NO 9, SEQ ID NO 10, SEQ ID NO 11, SEQ ID NO 12, SEQ ID NO 13, SEQ ID NO 14, SEQ ID NO 15, SEQ ID NO 16, SEQ ID NO 17, SEQ ID NO 18, SEQ ID NO 19, SEQ ID NO 20, SEQ ID NO 21, SEQ ID NO 22, SEQ ID NO 23, SEQ ID NO 24, SEQ ID NO 25, SEQ ID NO 26, SEQ ID NO 27, SEQ ID NO 28, SEQ ID NO 29, SEQ ID NO 30, SEQ ID NO 31, SEQ ID NO 32, SEQ ID NO 33, SEQ ID NO 34, SEQ ID NO 35, SEQ ID NO 36, SEQ ID NO 37, and SEQ ID NO 38.
In a second aspect, the invention provides novel recombinant nucleic acid sequences complementary to at least one nucleotide sequence selected from the nucleotide sequences set forth in the Sequence Listings as SEQ ID NO 1, SEQ ID NO 2, SEQ ID NO 3, SEQ ID NO 4, SEQ ID NO 5, SEQ ID NO 6, SEQ ID NO 7, SEQ ID NO 8, SEQ ID NO 9, SEQ ID NO 10, SEQ ID NO 11, SEQ ID NO 12, SEQ ID NO 13, SEQ ID NO 14, SEQ ID NO 15, SEQ ID NO 16, SEQ ID NO 17, SEQ ID NO 18, SEQ ID NO 19, SEQ ID NO 20, SEQ ID NO 21, SEQ ID NO 22, SEQ ID NO 23, SEQ ID NO 24, SEQ ID NO 25, SEQ ID NO 26, SEQ ID NO 27, SEQ ID NO 28, SEQ ID NO 29, SEQ ID NO 30, SEQ ID NO 31, SEQ ID NO 32, SEQ ID NO 33, SEQ ID NO 34, SEQ ID NO 35, SEQ ID NO 36, SEQ ID NO 37, and SEQ ID NO 38.
In a third aspect, the invention provides antisense oligonucleot
Bigey Pascal
Ramchandani Shyam
Szyf Moshe
Hale and Dorr LLP
Larson Thomas G.
MethylGene Inc.
Schwartzman Robert A.
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