Analogue peptides for the immunotherapy of human acute myeloid leukemia

Accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00262-015-1762-9The use of peptide vaccines, enhanced by adjuvants, has shown some efficacy in clinical trials. However, responses are often short-lived and rarely induce notable memory responses. The reason is that self-antigens have already been presented to the immune system as the tumor develops, leading to tolerance or some degree of host tumor cell destruction. To try to break tolerance against self-antigens, one of the methods employed has been to modify peptides at the anchor residues to enhance their ability to bind major histocompatibility complex molecules, extending their exposure to the T-cell receptor. These modified or analogue peptides have been investigated as stimulators of the immune system in patients with different cancers with variable but sometimes notable success. In this review we describe the background and recent developments in the use of analogue peptides for the immunotherapy of acute myeloid leukemia describing knowledge useful for the application of analogue peptide treatments for other malignancies

NetMHCpan, a Method for Quantitative Predictions of Peptide Binding to Any HLA-A and -B Locus Protein of Known Sequence

Binding of peptides to Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules is the single most selective step in the recognition of pathogens by the cellular immune system. The human MHC class I system (HLA-I) is extremely polymorphic. The number of registered HLA-I molecules has now surpassed 1500. Characterizing the specificity of each separately would be a major undertaking.Here, we have drawn on a large database of known peptide-HLA-I interactions to develop a bioinformatics method, which takes both peptide and HLA sequence information into account, and generates quantitative predictions of the affinity of any peptide-HLA-I interaction. Prospective experimental validation of peptides predicted to bind to previously untested HLA-I molecules, cross-validation, and retrospective prediction of known HIV immune epitopes and endogenous presented peptides, all successfully validate this method. We further demonstrate that the method can be applied to perform a clustering analysis of MHC specificities and suggest using this clustering to select particularly informative novel MHC molecules for future biochemical and functional analysis.Encompassing all HLA molecules, this high-throughput computational method lends itself to epitope searches that are not only genome- and pathogen-wide, but also HLA-wide. Thus, it offers a truly global analysis of immune responses supporting rational development of vaccines and immunotherapy. It also promises to provide new basic insights into HLA structure-function relationships. The method is available at http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/NetMHCpan

Downregulation of Chloroplast RPS1 Negatively Modulates Nuclear Heat-Responsive Expression of HsfA2 and Its Target Genes in Arabidopsis

Heat stress commonly leads to inhibition of photosynthesis in higher plants. The transcriptional induction of heat stress-responsive genes represents the first line of inducible defense against imbalances in cellular homeostasis. Although heat stress transcription factor HsfA2 and its downstream target genes are well studied, the regulatory mechanisms by which HsfA2 is activated in response to heat stress remain elusive. Here, we show that chloroplast ribosomal protein S1 (RPS1) is a heat-responsive protein and functions in protein biosynthesis in chloroplast. Knockdown of RPS1 expression in the rps1 mutant nearly eliminates the heat stress-activated expression of HsfA2 and its target genes, leading to a considerable loss of heat tolerance. We further confirm the relationship existed between the downregulation of RPS1 expression and the loss of heat tolerance by generating RNA interference-transgenic lines of RPS1. Consistent with the notion that the inhibited activation of HsfA2 in response to heat stress in the rps1 mutant causes heat-susceptibility, we further demonstrate that overexpression of HsfA2 with a viral promoter leads to constitutive expressions of its target genes in the rps1 mutant, which is sufficient to reestablish lost heat tolerance and recovers heat-susceptible thylakoid stability to wild-type levels. Our findings reveal a heat-responsive retrograde pathway in which chloroplast translation capacity is a critical factor in heat-responsive activation of HsfA2 and its target genes required for cellular homeostasis under heat stress. Thus, RPS1 is an essential yet previously unknown determinant involved in retrograde activation of heat stress responses in higher plants

Conserved methionines in chloroplasts

Heat shock proteins counteract heat and oxidative stress. In chloroplasts, a small heat shock protein (Hsp21) contains a set of conserved methionines, which date back to early in the emergence of terrestrial plants. Methionines M49, M52, M55, M59, M62, M67 are located on one side of an amphipathic helix, which may fold back over two other conserved methionines (M97 and M101), to form a binding groove lined with methionines, for sequence-independent recognition of peptides with an overall hydrophobic character. The sHsps protect other proteins from aggregation by binding to their hydrophobic surfaces, which become exposed under stress. Data are presented showing that keeping the conserved methionines in Hsp21 in a reduced form is a prerequisite to maintain such binding. The chloroplast generates reactive oxygen species under both stress and unstressed conditions, but this organelle is also a highly reducing cellular compartment. Chloroplasts contain a specialized isoform of the enzyme, peptide methionine sulfoxide reductase, the expression of which is light-induced. Recombinant proteins were used to measure that this reductase can restore Hsp21 methionines after sulfoxidation. This paper also describes how methionine sulfoxidation-reduction can be directly assessed by mass spectrometry, how methionine-to-leucine substitution affects Hsp21, and discusses the possible role for an Hsp21 methionine sulfoxidation-reduction cycle in quenching reactive oxygen species. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

MHCcluster, a method for functional clustering of MHC molecules

The identification of peptides binding to major histocompatibility complexes (MHC) is a critical step in the understanding of T cell immune responses. The human MHC genomic region (HLA) is extremely polymorphic comprising several thousand alleles, many encoding a distinct molecule. The potentially unique specificities remain experimentally uncharacterized for the vast majority of HLA molecules. Likewise, for nonhuman species, only a minor fraction of the known MHC molecules have been characterized. Here, we describe a tool, MHCcluster, to functionally cluster MHC molecules based on their predicted binding specificity. The method has a flexible web interface that allows the user to include any MHC of interest in the analysis. The output consists of a static heat map and graphical tree-based visualizations of the functional relationship between MHC variants and a dynamic TreeViewer interface where both the functional relationship and the individual binding specificities of MHC molecules are visualized. We demonstrate that conventional sequence-based clustering will fail to identify the functional relationship between molecules, when applied to MHC system, and only through the use of the predicted binding specificity can a correct clustering be found. Clustering of prevalent HLA-A and HLA-B alleles using MHCcluster confirms the presence of 12 major specificity groups (supertypes) some however with highly divergent specificities. Importantly, some HLA molecules are shown not to fit any supertype classification. Also, we use MHCcluster to show that chimpanzee MHC class I molecules have a reduced functional diversity compared to that of HLA class I molecules. MHCcluster is available at www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/MHCcluster-2.0.Fil: Thomsen, Martin. Technical University of Denmark. Department of Systems Biology. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis; DinamarcaFil: Lundegaard, Claus. Technical University of Denmark. Department of Systems Biology. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis; DinamarcaFil: Buus, Søren. University of Copenhagen. Laboratory of Experimental Immunology; DinamarcaFil: Lund, Ole. Technical University of Denmark. Department of Systems Biology. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis; DinamarcaFil: Nielsen, Morten. Universidad Nacional de San Martín; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Química y Fisicoquímica Biológicas; Argentina. Technical University of Denmark. Department of Systems Biology. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis; Dinamarc

Small heat shock proteins prevent aggregation of citrate synthase and bind to the N-terminal region which is absent in thermostable forms of citrate synthase

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