By Donald Zuhn --
On Thursday, CEL-SCI Corporation announced that it had been granted U.S. Patent No. 7,199,216 by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The '216 patent relates to conjugated peptides in which an antigenic peptide that is associated with an immune disorder is covalently bonded to a T-cell binding ligand that has been modified to inhibit or suppress the activation of the class or subclass of T-cells to which the antigenic peptide selectively binds. The conjugated peptides of the '216 patent can be used to decrease or completely retard undesirable immune response outcomes such as autoimmune diseases, asthma, allergy, or transplantation rejection.
According to the statement released by CEL-SCI, the '216 patent covers the company's T-cell modulation platform technology known as AdapT (for Antigen Directed Apoptosis), which uses peptide constructs to selectively cause the death of immune T-cells involved in autoimmune disease, asthma, allergy, and transplant rejection, by forcing these disease-causing T-cells to undergo apoptosis (programmed cell death) and anergy (a state of immune unresponsiveness). CEL-SCI's AdapT constructs exploit the fact that T-cells receiving only one of two signals required for T-cell activation will undergo apoptosis. In particular, while one peptide component of the AdapT constructs engages the antigen-specific T-cell receptor, the other peptide component blocks and inhibits the second signal needed for activation of disease-causing T-cells.
The '216 patent issued from U.S. Application No. 10/111,602 and claims the benefit of International Application No. PCT/US00/41647, filed October 27, 2000, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/161,733, filed October 27, 1999. The lone claim of the '216 patent recites:
1. A conjugated peptide consisting of the formula
DSAFDVLSFTAEEKAGVYK-z-NGQEEXAGVVSTGLI SEQ ID NO:30 or
NGQEEXAGVVSTGLI-z-DSAFDVLSFTAEEKAGVYK SEQ ID NO:29
wherein z is a direct bond or a divalent linker and X represents an amino acid other than Lys.
Comments