Background The Wilms Tumour Antigen 1 (WT1) has been shown to be expressed at low levels in some normal cells. Therefore, many of the potential CTL epitopes against this antigen may be absent or suboptimal. To this end, different groups introduced modifications in the sequence of the anchor positions of these “sub-optimal” peptides to improve their binding to HLA class I molecules and to increa...

Radioimmunotherapy is hindered by a variety of factors linked to the utilization of monoclonal antibodies. These limitations include restricted tumor penetration as well as low levels of intratumoral antigen expression. To address the latter problem, we used a gene therapy approach to induce tumor cells to express enhanced levels of receptor with high binding affinity for a radiolabeled peptide...

CTL specific for the influenza A virus matrix peptide 57-68 and restricted by HLA-A2 were studied. Their ability to recognize a set of analogue peptides, each of which differed from the natural peptide by a single amino acid, was analyzed. This revealed a core of five amino acids, 61-65, where one or more changes completely abrogated recognition. The glycine at position 61 was the only residue ...

A peptide (C13) corresponding to the last 13 amino acids of the carboxyl terminus of human platelet factor IV was found to be antibacterial. Amino acid substitutions predicted to disrupt either the amphipathic or alpha-helical nature of C13 rendered the peptide inactive. Antibacterial activity was demonstrated in normal human serum on bacteria which had been previously exposed to low levels of ...

PEGylation is a well-established technique utilized to overcome the problems related to the therapeutic applications of peptides and proteins. Reasons for the PEGylation of these biological macromolecules include reducing immunogenicity, proteolytic degradation and rapid clearance from blood circulation. Octreotide is an octapeptide analogue of naturally-occurred somatostatin. This peptide has ...