Abstract
The general approach, termed reverse immunology, to predict and identify immunogenic peptides from the sequence of a gene product of interest has been postulated to be a particularly efficient, high-throughput approach to discover tumor antigens. This laboratory has successfully identified immunogenic peptides of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), a self-tumor antigen, by using a multi-step approach. These steps include the following: the use of predictive bioinformatics algorithms, molecular methods to identify tumor-specific transcripts, prediction of proteasomal cleavage sites, peptide-binding prediction to HLA molecules and experimental validation, assessment of the in vitro and in vivo immunogenic potential of selected peptide antigens, isolation of specific cytolytic T lymphocyte clones, and final validation in functional assays of tumor cell recognition. This laboratory, and others have used similar methods to identify immunogenic peptides of self-tumor antigens, and many of those peptides are included in vaccines currently tested in clinical trials.
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Cortez-Gonzalez, X., Zanetti, M. (2010). Identification of Immunogenic Peptides of the Self-Tumor Antigen: Our Experience with Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase. In: Yotnda, P. (eds) Immunotherapy of Cancer. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 651. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60761-786-0_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60761-786-0_12
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