DNA vaccines have proven to be an efficient means of inducing immune responses in small laboratory animals; however, their efficacy in large out-bred animal models has been much less promising. In addressing this issue, we have investigated the ability of ovine cytotoxic lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) mediated targeting and ruminant specific CpG optimised plasmids, both alone and in combination,...

Activating human immune system to battle cancer has been a focus of cancer immunotherapy research from quite some time. After decades of disappointment, the tide has finally changed with some recent successes in clinical trials. The first such approach with clinical success is cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA4) antibody therapy which aims to relieve the immune suppressive effects of CTLA-...

Glomerulopathy is the third most important cause of kidney disease. Proteinuria is the hallmark of glomerular damage, and a marker of progression of kidney disease, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Strategies to reduce proteinuria are partially successful, and despite proteinuria management, renal disease may still progress. Immunosuppression to treat glomerulopathies is nonspecific, par...

B7-1 and B7-2 are costimulatory molecules expressed on antigen-presenting cells. The CD28/B7 costimulation pathway is critical for T-cell activation, proliferation, and Th polarization. Blocking both cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and CD28 interactions with a CTLA-4/Ig fusion protein inhibits various immune-mediated processes in vivo, such as allograft rejection and autoim...

Genetic polymorphisms in the human genome are an important component of genotypic variability including one's immune status. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) gene have been linked to susceptibility to autoimmune disease. Interestingly, we have recently shown that an SNP in the CTLA-4 coding region (49A > G) is also associated with susceptib...

Immunosuppression may contribute to cancer progression, in which regulatory T (T-reg) cells have been demonstrated to play important roles. We investigated whether anti-CD25 (alpha-CD25) monoclonal antibody (mAb) and anti-cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (alpha-CTLA-4) mAb could augment in vitro proliferation and cytotoxic activity against cancer cell lines of lymphokine-activated ki...

The capsular polysaccharides (caps-PS) of Streptococcus pneumoniae are classified as thymus-independent antigens. Nevertheless, T lymphocytes can modulate the antibody response to caps-PS. In this study, we show that anticytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) treatment, along with administration of caps-PS to BALB/c mice, resulted in a dose-dependent generation of a strong caps-PS...

Single domain human immunoglobulin fold-based biomolecules Simon E. Hufton Target Quest B.V., University Hospital Maastricht, PO Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands We have developed human immunoglobulin fold containing proteins as alternative binding ligands to antibodies. Firstly, we have evaluated cytotoxic T lymphocyte associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) as a protein scaffold. CTLA-4 is...

BACKGROUND A number of studies assessed the association of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) gene polymorphisms with asthma in different populations. However, the results were contradictory. We performed a meta-analysis to examine the association between CTLA-4 polymorphisms and asthma susceptibility. METHODS Pubmed, EMBASE, HuGE Navigator, and Wanfang Database were searche...

background :cytotoxic t lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (ctla-4) is an important negative regulator of t-cell responses. the -1722tc polymorphism of the ctla-4 gene may be associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) risk, but related results from previous studies have been inconsistent. we carried out a meta-analysis to assess this association more precisely.   methods : a systematic sea...