ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,258,588, issued on March 25, was assigned to Hangzhou Enhe Biotechnology Co. Ltd. (Zhejiang, China).

"Fusion polypeptides for production of 7-dehydrocholesterol and methods of use thereof" was invented by Yazhou Zu (Hangzhou, China), Zhenhua Pang (Hangzhou, China) and Igor Walter Bogorad (Lafayette, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure relates to fusion proteins including an iron-sulfur protein (e.g., cholesterol 7-desaturase (C7D)) and a ferredoxin reductase (e.g., KshB) that can efficiently convert cholesterol to 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) in vivo. Also disclosed herein are engineered microbes (e.g., E. coli)...