A system for selecting an immunogenic peptide composition comprising a processor and a memory storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to create a first peptide set by selecting a plurality of base peptides, wherein at least one peptide of the plurality of base peptides is associated with a disease, create a second peptide set by adding to the first peptide set a modified peptide, wherein the modified peptide comprises a substitution of at least one residue of a base peptide selected from the plurality of base peptides, and create a third peptide set by selecting a subset of the second peptide set, wherein the selected subset of the second peptide set has a predicted vaccine performance, wherein the predicted vaccine performance has a population coverage above a predetermined threshold, and wherein the subset comprises at least one peptide of the second peptide set.

The present disclosure generally relates to, inter alia, a new class of chimeric Notch receptors containing a synthetic zinc finger transcriptional effector (synZTE) module, engineered to modulate gene expression and cellular activities in a ligand-dependent manner. The new Notch receptors surprisingly retain the ability to transduce signals in response to ligand binding despite that the Notch extracellular subunit (NEC), which includes the negative regulatory region (NRR) previously believed to be essential for the functioning of Notch receptors, is partly or completely deleted. In addition, the synZTE is designed to bind orthogonal DNA target sequences in target organisms which in turn facilitates precise regulation of therapeutic gene expression with minimal off-target activity. Also provided are compositions and methods useful for producing such receptors, nucleic acids encoding same, host cells genetically modified with the nucleic acids, as well as methods for modulating an activity of a cell and/or for the treatment of various health conditions such as cancers.

Non-human animal genomes, non-human animal cells, and non-human animals comprising a humanized TRKB locus and methods of making and using such non-human animal genomes, non-human animal cells, and non-human animals are provided. Non-human animal cells or non-human animals comprising a humanized TRKB locus express a human TRKB protein or a chimeric transthyretin protein, fragments of which are from human TRKB. Methods are provided for using such non-human animals comprising a humanized TRKB locus to assess in vivo efficacy of human-TRKB-targeting reagents such as nuclease agents designed to target human TRKB.

The present invention provides methods and compositions to reduce growth of microbial colonies, including infections, and includes therapeutic compositions, methods for treatment of infections, and methods for identifying additional such compositions.

Methods for cancer treatment include administering to a cancer patient an anti-CD38 antibody-attenuated human IFN alpha-2b construct and lenalidomide or pomalidomide. Tumors that may be treated according to these methods include tumors which comprise CD-38 expressing tumor cells, including B-cell lymphoma, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic myelogenous leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Described herein is the discovery of novel PSMA-specific peptides, which were identified through a novel combinatorial biopanning method. One of the novel PSMA-specific peptides discovered, GTIQPYPFSWGY (or GTI) (SEQ ID NO: 2), exhibits high binding affinity and selectivity to PSMA and PSMA-positive prostate cancer cells. It was found that GTI can mediate internalization of the apoptotic KLA peptide to PSMA-positive LNCaP cells and induce cell death. Moreover, a FAM-labeled GTI peptide shows a high and specific tumor uptake in nude mice bearing human prostate cancer xenografts. It was demonstrated that the GTI peptide can be employed as a PSMA-specific ligand for prostate cancer diagnosis and/or for targeted drug delivery to prostate cancer cells.

The invention relates to novel TNF family ligand trimer-containing antigen binding molecules comprising (a) at least one moiety capable of specific binding to a target cell antigen, (b) a polypeptide comprising three ectodomains of a TNF ligand family member or fragments thereof that are connected to each other by peptide linkers and (c) a Fc domain composed of a first and a second subunit capable of stable association, and to methods of producing these molecules and to methods of using the same.

A fusion protein including granzyme B, a cell penetrating peptide, a cleavage site, and a targeting moiety, a composition for cell membrane penetration comprising the fusion protein, and an anticancer composition comprising the fusion protein.

An expression vector is disclosed which contains a promoter DNA; a DNA encoding a peptide having a defined amino acid sequence and having secretion signal activity; and a DNA encoding an intended protein or a cloning site for insertion of the DNA encoding an intended protein. An expression vector is also disclosed which contains a promoter DNA; a DNA encoding any peptide having a defined amino acid sequence and having secretion signal activity; a DNA encoding an intended protein or a cloning site for insertion of the DNA encoding an intended protein; and a DNA encoding an anchor domain. The peptide having secretion signal activity allows for secretory production and cell surface display of a protein with high activity, in yeast. According to the present invention, a secretion signal peptide is provided which stably has higher secretion activity ability It is also an object of the present invention to provide a secretion signal peptide that stably has higher secretion ability than that of a conventionally used secretion signal peptide in secretory production and cell surface display of a protein.

The application describes a method of selecting mammalian host cells that express a polypeptide of interest with high yield. The host cells contain an expression cassette with a first polynucleotide encoding a polypeptide of interest, at least one leaky stop codon located downstream of the first polynucleotide and a second polynucleotide located downstream of the leaky codon encoding an immunoglobulin transmembrane anchor comprising a cytoplasmic domain. The host cells are cultivated to allow expression of the polypeptide of interest such that some of the polypeptides of interest are expressed as fusion proteins displayed on the cell surface. High producing cells are then selected based on the presence or amount of the displayed fusion polypeptides.