The cell membranes of a T-strain of mycoplasma, obtained by ultrasonic disruption, were as effective as whole organisms in eliciting metabolism-inhibiting and complement-fixing antibodies. The soluble fraction separated from cell membranes by centrifugation at 35,000 X g showed a minor ability to elicit an antibody response as measured by metabolism inhibition and complement fixation tests. Aft...

Although the concept of Reverse Vaccinology was first pioneered for sepsis and meningococcal meningitidis causing bacterium, Neisseria meningitides, no broadly effective vaccine against serogroup B meningococcal disease is yet available. In the present investigation, HLA distribution analysis was undertaken to select three most promiscuous T-cell epitopes out of ten computationally validated ep...

With approximately 240,890 new cases expected in 2011, prostate cancer remains the leading cause of non-melanoma cancer deaths in men. Immunotherapies using viral vector-based delivery systems targeting tumor-specific antigens are being studied. Viral vector-based delivery systems present tumor-targeted antigens (TAAs) to the immune system while breaking self-tolerance. Modified vaccinia ankara...

INTRODUCTION Peptide vaccines offer anti-tumor efficacy with very low toxicity. However, repeat stimulation with an immunogenic peptide leads to activation induced cell death (AICD), decreasing efficacy. We engineered variants of an immunogenic peptide (E39) and tested their ability to induce a robust, sustainable immune response. METHODS Multiple variants of E39 were created by exchanging 1 ...

BACKGROUND Leishmania is a pathogenic parasite which infects mononuclear cells in vertebrate hosts. Different strategies have been taken to develop immunity against Leishmania. DCs loaded with immunogenic antigen have resulted in different levels of Th1-type immune response and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) activity. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the potency of DCs primed with soluble Leishmania mexi...

Background As a clinical setting in which local live biological therapy is already well established, nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) presents intriguing opportunities for oncolytic virotherapy. Coxsackievirus A21 (CVA21) is a novel intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) targeted immunotherapeutic virus. Combining CVA21 with low doses of chemotherapy (Mitomycin C) enhances CVA21 vi...

Prion diseases are caused by abnormal folding of the prion protein. The paradigm is that the prion protein is not immunogenic because the immune system must be tolerant to such a self protein. In an attempt to identify immunogenic prion peptides, we immunized Lewis rats with peptides that fitted the MHC class II RT1.B(1)motif. Both humoral and cellular immunity to the prion peptides were obtain...

Various human malignancies are immunogenic and recent cancer vaccine trials have demonstrated potential survival benefit. Breast cancer is immunogenic and there are several tumor associated antigens for which breast cancer vaccines have been developed. Breast cancer vaccines are designed to stimulate the immune response at various steps in the native antigen processing pathway for immunosurveil...

Immunization of mice with in vitro reconstituted alpha2-macroglobulin-peptide complexes primes peptide-specific CTL responses. We show here using the H-Y antigenic system that naturally produced, immunogenic alpha2macroglobulin-peptide complexes can be isolated from the sera of normal male mice. As an application of these ideas to cancer immunity, we show that the immunity evoked by alpha2-macr...