Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe Gmbh

Universitaet Karlsruhe

Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum

Boehringer Ingelheim International Gmbh

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Gmbh

Krebsforschungszentrum

Helmut Ponta

Peter Herrlich

Ursula Guenthert

Siegfried Matzku

Achim Wenzel

Peter Dall

Steven T Pals

Margot Zoller

Kim Untae

Jonathan Sleeman

Karl-Heinz Heider

The present invention relates to a novel composition for identifying and suppressing the growth of tumor cells, which comprises antibodies which react with proteins having N-glycosidically bonded saccharides.

Agent for identifying and treating metastasizing tumors

Process for detecting a variant CD44 gene product

The present invention relates to a method of reducing or suppressing an immune response with antibodies specific for variants of the glycoprotein CD44. The invention further relates to a method of preventing or treating an immunoregulatory disorder or disease with these antibodies.

Methods to suppress an immune response with variant CD44-specific

The inventon relates to antibodies that react with a variant epilope in the extracellular region of a variant CD44 polypeptide, wherein the variant epitope has the amino acid sequence: I S S T I S T T P R A P D H T K Q N Q D W T Q W N P S H S N P E V L L Q T T T R M T D V D R N G T T A Y E G N W N P E A H P P L I H H E H H E E E E T P H S T S T I O A T P S S T T E E T A T Q K E Q W F G N R W H E G Y R Q T P R E D S H S T T G T A A A S A H T S H P M Q G R T T P S P E D S S W T D F F N P I S H P M G R G H Q A G R R (residues 53-219 of SEQ ID NO:4). Methods of using the antibodies to identify variant epitopes also are provided.

Antibodies that react with variant CD44 surface proteins

A monoclonal antibody (MAb1.1ASML) directed against a surface glycoprotein of the metastasizing rat pancreatic carcinoma cell line BSp73ASML, was used to identify and isolate a complementary DNA (cDNA) clone capable of encoding for a glycoprotein with partial homology to CD44, a presumed adhesion molecule. This clone, which was subsequently designated pMeta-1, contains an additional extracellular domain of 162 amino acids inserted into the CD44 protein between amino acid positions 223 and 247 (by analogy to human and murine CD44). This new variant was expressed only in the metastasizing cell lines of two rat tumors, the pancreatic carcinoma BSp73 and the mammary adenocarcinoma 13762NF; it was not expressed in non-metastasizing tumor cell lines nor in normal rat tissues. Overexpression of pMeta-1 in the nonmetastasizing BSp73AS cell line suffices to establish full metastatic behavior. The variant-specific rat CD44 sequence was used to isolate a cDNA clone encoding for a human homologue as well.

Human and rat variants of glycoprotein CD44 containing an additional

DNA encoding variant CD44 surface proteins associated with metastatic

Growing community of inventors

Linkenheim, Germany

Helmut Ponta