| Immunotoxins Made with Modified Cholix Toxin and Uses Thereof |
| Immunotoxins are chimeric molecules comprising an antibody targeting moiety and a toxin domain capable of killing a cell. Immunotoxins represent an important therapeutic tool for the treatment of cancer because they are able to specifically target cancer cells while ignoring healthy cells. The major drawback to immunotoxins is the development of neutralizing antibodies against the toxin portion of the immunotoxin. Many patients treated with Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE) based immunotoxins devel... More... |
| The Use of Recombinant Cholera Toxin-B for the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease |
| The present invention provides methods of treating inflammatory bowel disease in a subject, comprising administering to the subject an effective amount of cholera toxin subunit B (CT-B). In particular, the present invention provides methods of decreasing the activity of interferon-gamma in a subject, decreasing the activity of IL-12 in a subject, and treating or preventing a Th1 T-cell mediated autoimmune disorder.... More... |
| New Cholera Vaccine and Method for Conjugating Bacterial Polysaccharides to Proteins |
| A new conjugate vaccine for cholera has been developed. The invention includes a new method to conjugate the O-specific polysaccharide-core part of the bacterial lipopolysaccharide and protein subcomponents. Conventional technology has entailed chemical treatment of both components to introduce linkers, which made them amenable for covalent linking. The new method simplifies production by utilizing squaric acid chemistry for conjugating the free amine-containing species (e.g. polysaccharides)... More... |
| Mammalian Guanine Nucleotide-Binding Protein with an ADP-Ribosylation Factor Domain (ARD1) |
| ADP-ribosylation factors (ARFs) constitute one family of the -20-kDa guanine nucleotide-binding ras superfamily. ARFs regulate secretory, endocytic, exocytic, and nuclear fusion events and activate phospholipase D and cholera toxin. ARD1 is a 64-kDa protein containing an ARF domain at its carboxy terminus. This invention includes a cell line transfected with an expression vector containing either rat or human ARD-1 DNA and an immunoassay kit for detecting ARD proteins in samples.... More... |
| Clones Encoding Mammalian ADP-Ribosylarginine Hydrolases |
| ADP-ribosylation of arginine residues in proteins may be involved in cell adhesion and is crucial for the action of cholera toxin and E. coli heat-labile enterotoxin, agents involved in the pathogenesis of cholera and traveller's diarrhoea, respectively. ADP-ribosylation is reversed by ADP-ribosylarginine hydrolases, which cleave the ADP-ribose-arginine bond. ADP-ribosylarginine hydrolases from a variety of mammalian species and tissues were isolated, and the coding regions for the hydrolases we... More... |
| Mucosal Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Responses |
| The invention offered for licensing provides methods and compositions for induction of an antigen-specific, mucosal cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response useful in preventing and treating infections with pathogens that gain entry via a mucosal surface. The methods of the invention involve administering either a soluble antigen itself, or a polynucleotide encoding the soluble antigen, to a mucosal surface. The soluble antigens can be full length, naturally occurring polypeptides or fragments (i.e... More... |
| Development of a Plant Derived Recombinant Subunit Vaccine Candidate Against Hepatitis C |
| Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of acute and chronic hepatitis with over 180 million cases worldwide. Development of a vaccine to combat HCV has been difficult. Presently, the virus cannot be grown in tissue culture and there is no vaccine or effective therapy against this virus. This technology relates to the development of an experimental plant-derived subunit vaccine against HCV. A tobamoviral vector was engineered to encode a consensus sequence of hypervariable region 1 (HVR1),... More... |
| Tryptophan as a Functional Replacement for ADP-ribose-arginine in Recombinant Proteins |
| Bacterial toxins such as cholera toxin and diphtheria toxin catalyze the ADP-ribosylation of important cellular target proteins in their human hosts, thereby, as in the case of cholera toxin, irreversibly activating adenylyl cyclase. In this reaction, the toxin transfers the ADP-ribose moiety of Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) to an acceptor amino acid in a protein or peptide. ADP-ribosylation leads to a peptide/protein with altered biochemical or pharmacological properties. Mammalian... More... |
| Vibrio cholerae O139 Conjugate Vaccines |
| Cholera remains an important public health problem. Epidemic cholera is caused by two Vibrio cholerae serotypes O1 and O139. The disease is spread through contaminated water. According to information reported to the World Health Organization in 1999, nearly 8,500 people died and another 223,000 were sickened with cholera worldwide. This invention is a polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine to prevent and treat infection by Vibrio cholerae O139 comprising the capsular polysaccharide (CPS) o... More... |