Peptides that specifically bind erythrocytes are described. These are provided as peptidic ligands having sequences that specifically bind, or as antibodies or fragments thereof that provide specific binding, to erythrocytes. The peptides may be prepared as molecular fusions with therapeutic agents, tolerizing antigens, or targeting peptides. Immunotolerance may be created by use of the fusions and choice of an antigen on a substance for which tolerance is desired.

Two-component vaccine formulations and methods are contemplated where the vaccine has an adjuvant component and a therapeutic component. The therapeutic component comprises preferably a recombinant therapeutic virus encoding a therapeutic antigen while the adjuvant component comprises a non-host cell or immune stimulating portion thereof. Notably, use of the adjuvant component will result in significant uptake of the therapeutic component into immune competent cells, even in the absence of receptors for entry of the therapeutic component. In addition, such adjuvant also stimulates expression of the therapeutic antigen.

This disclosure provides nano-scale Artificial Antigen Presenting Cells (aAPC), which deliver stimulatory signals to lymphocytes, including cytotoxic lymphocytes, for use as a powerful tool for immunotherapy.

Highly effective vaccine compositions are constructed according to the methods of this invention. The methods are amenable to use with any peptidic antigen sequence and involve covalent attachment of an immunostimulatory nucleotide sequence to an antigenic peptide sequence. Preferred antigenic peptides are fusion peptides made up of one or more CTL epitope peptides in sequence fused to a T helper peptide.

The invention relates a compound comprising (a) a peptide and (b) a carrier, wherein said peptide having at least the motif X-X-X-X-X-X-X, wherein at least one amino acid residue X is glycosylated, said peptide being linked to the peptide binding protein and said carrier comprises at least a MHC binding motif being linked to said peptide as well as pharmaceutical compositions comprising said compound and the use of said compound or pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of a disease, such as an inflammatory joint disease. The subject matter of the application is exemplified with peptides derived from type II collagen such as peptides having at least the sequence AGFKGEA, or IAGFKGEQPKG, or the peptide AAAKAAA. Preferably a hydroxylysine in the peptides are glycosylated.

Disclosed herein are alphavirus vectors that include neoantigen-encoding nucleic acid sequences derived from a tumor of a subject. Also disclosed are nucleotides, cells, and methods associated with the vectors including their use as vaccines.

The current disclosure fulfills a need in the art by providing methods and compositions for treating and vaccinating individuals against cancer. Accordingly, aspects of the disclosure relate to an isolated peptide comprising at least 70% sequence identity to a peptide of Table 1. In some embodiments, the peptide comprises at least 6 contiguous amino acids of a peptide of Table 1. Further aspects relate to pharmaceutical compositions comprising the isolated peptide, nucleic acids encoding the peptide, and expression vectors and host cells comprising the nucleic acids of the disclosure. Also provided is an in vitro isolated dendritic cell comprising a peptide, nucleic acid, or expression vector of the disclosure.

The present invention relates to peptides, proteins, nucleic acids and cells for use in immunotherapeutic methods. In particular, the present invention relates to the immunotherapy of cancer. The present invention furthermore relates to tumor-associated T-cell peptide epitopes, alone or in combination with other tumor-associated peptides that can for example serve as active pharmaceutical ingredients of vaccine compositions that stimulate anti-tumor immune responses, or to stimulate T cells ex vivo and transfer into patients. Peptides bound to molecules of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), or peptides as such, can also be targets of antibodies, soluble T-cell receptors, and other binding molecules.

The present invention relates to self-assembling protein nanoparticles encapsulating immunostimulatory nucleid acids. Furthermore, the invention relates to the use of such nanoparticles for vaccination.

Minor histocompatibility antigens (MiHAs) binding to certain human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles are described. These MiHAs were selected based on two features: (i) they are encoded by loci with a minor allele frequency (MAF) of at least 0.05; and (ii) they have adequate tissue distribution. Compositions, nucleic acids and cells related to these MiHAs are also described. The present application also discloses the use of these MiHAs, and related compositions, nucleic acids and cells, in applications related to cancer immunotherapy, for example for the treatment of hematologic cancers such as leukemia.