| abstract |
The present invention contemplates synthetic pulmonary surfactants. In one embodiment, a synthetic pulmonary surfactant of the present invention comprises a pharmaceutically acceptable phospholipid admixed with a polypeptide comprising at least 10 amino acid residues and no more than about 60 amino acid residues, wherein the polypeptide includes a sequence having alternating hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acid residue regions represented by the formula (ZaUb)cZd. In various alternative embodiments, Z is a hydrophilic amino acid residue independently selected from the group consisting of R and K; U is a hydrophobic amino acid residue independently selected from the group consisting of V, I, L, C, Y and F, with L and C being particularly preferred; a has an average value of about 1 to about 5; b has an average value of about 3 to about 20; c is 1 to 10; and d is 0 to 3, with a value of 0, 1, or 2 being particularly preferred. In another variation, a polypeptide of the present invention, when admixed with a pharmaceutically acceptable phospholipid, forms a synthetic pulmonary surfactant having a surfactant activity greater than the surfactant activity of the phospholipid alone. Methods of synthesizing and using the polypeptides and synthetic surfactants of the present invention are also disclosed. |