Compositions and methods of activating dendritic cells with LMP1 and LMP1-activated dendritic cell based compositions and methods are effective for dendritic cell therapy and provide an adjuvant function for vaccine administration. LMP1 or LMP1-CD40 chimeric protein may be used to activate and mature dendritic cells. LMP1 and LMP1-activated dendritic cells act as an adjuvant to enhance the cellular immune response. Also disclosed herein are kits for activating dendritic cells and for preparing a vaccine formulation. Administration of the dendritic cells transfected with LMP1 can induce an immune response against cancer or infection. The mature dendritic cells may comprise an antigen and at least one cytokine in addition to LMP1. Use of LMP1 or LMP1-CD40 provides a way to activate and mature dendritic cells that retain functional and migratory abilities without the side effects that result from maturing the dendritic cells using PGE.sub.2.

The present invention features methods for stimulating clearance of misfolded or aggregated proteins or peptides in microglia or neurons, and treating neurodegenerative diseases associated with such pathology in brain by selectively inhibiting the expression or activity of Acyl-CoA: Cholesterol Acyltransferase 1, but not Acyl-CoA: Cholesterol Acyltransferase 2.

Methods, reporter gene constructs, and kits for using prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) as an imaging reporter to image a variety of cells and tissues are provided.

The present invention relates to an anti-tumor adenovirus that can evade the in-vivo immune system. The adenovirus having high ability to kill tumor of the present invention, by comprising a nucleic acid encoding a tumor albumin-binding domain, has significantly increased effects of infecting and killing tumor cells, exhibits an increase in binding with albumin to thereby evade in-vivo immune responses, leading to an increase in plasma half-life, is specifically delivered to cancer cells to produce systemic therapeutic effects, and can be topically delivered and has excellent selectivity, resulting in a remarkable effect in anti-tumor efficacy and, therefore, the adenovirus can be advantageously used as an anticancer composition or anticancer adjuvant in various types of cancer.

Provided herein are methods of sensitizing cancer cells to treatment with inhibitors of the PD-1 pathway. Such methods comprise treatment of subject with a checkpoint inhibitor refractory cancer with an expression vector encoding a chimeric CD154.

The invention is based on the disclosure provided herein that secondary lymphoid organ chemokine (SLC) inhibits the growth of syngeneic tumors in vivo. Thus, the invention provides a method of treating cancer in a mammal subject by administering a therapeutically effective amount of an SLC to the mammal in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor, including monoclonal antibodies and small molecule inhibitors. Exemplary checkpoint molecules include CTLA-4, a CTLA-4 receptor, PD-1, PD1-L1, PD1-L2, 4-1BB, OX40, LAG-3, TIM-3 or a combination thereof. SLCs useful in the methods of the invention include SLC polypeptides, variants and fragments and related nucleic acids.

Methods for generating immune responses using adenovirus vectors that allow multiple vaccinations with the same adenovirus vector and vaccinations in individuals with preexisting immunity to adenovirus are provided.

The finding that phosphatidylserine (PtdSer) exposure on the outer leaflet of virally transduced cells triggers their engulfment by resident immune cells is described. It is demonstrated that inhibition of phospholipid scramblase 1 (PLSCR1) activity prevents PtdSer externalization and enables prolonged protection of vector-transduced cells from phagocytosis. Methods of inhibiting a virus vector-induced inflammatory response in tissue, methods of prolonging virus vector encoded transgene expression, and methods of modulating an inflammatory response in tissue of a subject, by administering an inhibitor of PLSCR1 are described.

The invention provides manipulated adenovirus, i.e. a viral particle based on a manipulated adenovirus, for use as a medicament, especially for use in the treatment of tumours. The viral particle of the invention has the advantage of having a preference or specificity for tumour cells, yielding a preferred infection of tumour cells. The viral particle is based on adenovirus, especially type C, preferably serotype 2 (Ad2), more preferably serotype 5 (Ad5), in which the native entire fiber protein, and its coding sequence, respectively, is deleted and replaced by a fusion protein providing specificity for cell surface bound polysialic acid.

The present disclosure relates to a vaccine composition, wherein the vaccine composition comprises an immune amount of fowl adenovirus Fiber-2 protein or an immune amount of a live vector recombined with gene of the fowl adenovirus Fiber-2 protein, and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. The vaccine composition can provide effective immune protection against different serotypes of adenoviruses and provide a protection rate of 100% at low levels of immunogenic components, showing good immunological efficacy.