Search results for "Immunogen"
showing 10 items of 226 documents
Development of novel vaccine strategies against human cytomegalovirus infection based on subviral particles.
2002
Abstract Background: Pre- and perinatal human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection remains one of the major causes of mental defects and sensineural hearing loss in children. In addition, it is a prominent infectious complication in immunosuppressed individuals such as AIDS patients or transplant recipients. Therefore, the development of an HCMV vaccine has been given top priority by health care institutions. Study design: Defective subviral particles of HCMV, termed Dense Bodies (DB) contain the dominant target antigens for humoral and cellular immune responses elicited during natural infection. These enveloped particles are released from infected culture cells and can be purified by gradient …
The immunogenicity of human and murine cytomegaloviruses.
2000
Cytomegaloviruses are strictly host-species-specific. During an aeon of co-evolution, virus and host have found an arrangement: the productive and cytopathogenic cycle of viral gene expression is held in check by the host's immune response. As a consequence, cytomegalovirus disease is restricted to the immunocompromised host. The virus has evolved strategies to avoid its elimination and eventually hides itself in a silent state, referred to as 'viral latency'. Redundant molecular mechanisms have been identified by which cytomegaloviruses interfere with antigen presentation pathways to 'evade' immune control. In the annual period covered by this review, the IE1 protein was revisited as an im…
Genomics Meets Cancer Immunotherapy
2014
High-throughput cancer genomics and bioinformatics are revolutionizing our ability to profile tumor samples. With next-generation sequencing (NGS) and high-performance computing (HPC) platforms, we have developed the infrastructures to determine and characterize tumor genomes and transcriptomes within days. Now, we are integrating these platforms into both cancer immunology and patient therapy decision-making. Here, we briefly describe the technology platforms and highlight several emerging applications: profiling of tumor mutations and gene expression; determination of HLA type and tumor expression, enabling prediction of immunogenic tumor mutations; and identification of viruses present i…
Immune Response to Tumor Stress Proteins—Implications for Vaccine Development Against Cancer
2000
Publisher Summary Stress proteins or heat shock proteins (HSP) belong to the most conserved proteins. The conservation of stress proteins stems from their basic and vital role in cells: Prevention of protein aggregation under stress and physiological conditions. Stress proteins are important target antigens in autoimmune diseases and during certain bacterial infections. This chapter reviews the immunogenicity of stress proteins of tumor cells, stimulation of T cell response by tumor stress proteins and implications this Tcell response have for immunity against the tumor or autoimmunity. The expression of stress proteins in cancer is altered. An overexpression of constitutively expressed or …
Hapten Synthesis and Polyclonal Antibody-Based Immunoassay Development for the Analysis of Forchlorfenuron in Kiwifruit
2010
High-affinity polyclonal antibodies directed against the synthetic cytokinin forchlorfenuron (CPPU) were produced from three immunizing haptens with equivalent spacer arms located at different positions. A competitive immunoassay was developed with a limit of detection in buffer of 12.42 +/- 3.06 ng/L. In addition, the ability of the produced antibodies to recognize a set of synthetic CPPU analogues was studied. It was evidenced that the linker position had a strong impact on the specificity of the generated polyclonals, which were more sensitive to changes at moieties of the target analyte located furthest from the derivatization site of the immunogen. Finally, matrix effects of gold and g…
Synthesis of tumor-associated MUC1-glycopeptides and their multivalent presentation by functionalized gold colloids
2014
The mucin MUC1 is a glycoprotein involved in fundamental biological processes, which can be found over-expressed and with a distinctly altered glycan pattern on epithelial tumor cells; thus it is a promising target structure in the quest for effective carbohydrate-based cancer vaccines and immunotherapeutics. Natural glycopeptide antigens indicate only a low immunogenicity and a T-cell independent immune response; however, this major drawback can be overcome by coupling of glycopeptide antigens multivalently to immunostimulating carrier platforms. In particular, gold nanoparticles are well suited as templates for the multivalent presentation of glycopeptide antigens, due to their remarkably…
Recombinant virus-like particles as a carrier of B- and T-cell epitopes of hepatitis C virus (HCV)
2005
The major aim of the project was the development of virus-like particles (VLP) displaying B- and T-cell epitopes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) proteins. To this end, hepatitis B virus core (HBc) particles were used as a carrier of HCV epitopes. Fragments of HCV genes encoding core (aa 98) and NS3 (aa 155) proteins were fused to the 3' terminus of the truncated HBV core gene. All recombinant plasmids led to relatively high levels of expression of chimeric proteins in E. coli, which resulted in the formation of complete "mature" VLP. Chimeric HBc/HCV VLPs were purified by combination of gel filtration and sucrose gradient centrifugation, and used for immunogenicity studies in mice. All variants …
Forchlorfenuron-mimicking haptens: From immunogen design to antibody characterization by hierarchical clustering analysis
2011
To obtain highly-specific and selective forchlorfenuron binders, a collection of functionalized derivatives with different spacer arm locations and lengths was prepared. By immunization with target-mimicking haptens, a large battery of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against this synthetic cell regulator was produced and exhaustively characterized in two immunoassay formats using homologous and heterologous conjugates. Antibodies with IC50 values lower than 0.3 nM were successfully raised from the prepared immunogens, thus evidencing the efficacy of the explored strategies. In order to identify significant epitopes in the antibody-antigen interaction, a series of new chemical forchlorf…
Immunoreagents and competitive assays to fludioxonil
2014
Fludioxonil is a new-generation fungicide widely used for postharvest fruit protection. The aim of this study was to produce hitherto unreported immunoreagents for Fludioxonil analysis by immunoassay. Derivatives of this agrochemical were synthesized with different linker tethering sites. Those functionalized haptens were activated, and the purified active esters were efficiently conjugated to different carrier proteins for immunogen and assay antigen preparation. Antibodies to Fludioxonil were raised in rabbits, and their selectivity and affinity were characterized, revealing the significance of the linker. Those antibodies were evaluated using homologous and heterologous conjugates by dir…
Hapten synthesis, monoclonal antibody generation, and development of competitive immunoassays for the analysis of picoxystrobin in beer.
2010
Abstract This paper describes the original synthesis of a functionalized derivative of the fungicide picoxystrobin and the generation of the first reported monoclonal antibodies against this strobilurin pesticide. The synthetic hapten was prepared by total synthesis from commercial chemicals and incorporating the spacer arm through a carbon–carbon single bond. Also, to obtain the immunogen, an uncommon hapten activation strategy based on N,N′-disuccinimidyl carbonate was employed, affording high activation yields and clean and reproducible coupling results. With these immunoreagents, two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) were developed: a competitive one-step assay using the antib…