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The peptides with an alanine extension blocked Kv1.3 at low pM concentrations and exhibited up to 2250-fold selectivity for Kv1.3 over Kv1.1. Their selectivity was determined by patch-clamp electrophysiology on Kv1.3 and Kv1.1 channels stably expressed in mouse fibroblasts. In addition, we also explored the combinatorial effects of these internal substitutions with an alanine extension at the C-terminus. In this report, we describe several variants of ShK that incorporate p-phophono-phenylalanine at the N-terminus coupled with internal substitutions at Gln16 and Met21.
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While ShK-186 displays a >100-fold improvement in selectivity for Kv1.3 over Kv1.1 compared with ShK, there is considerable interest in developing peptides with an even greater selectivity ratio. We developed an analog of this peptide, ShK-186, which is currently in Phase 1b-2a clinical trials for the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. 10 pM and the related channel Kv1.1 at ca.
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