Chugai Seiyaku Kabushiki Kaisha

Other

Shuji Ozaki

Masaaki Kosaka

Yuji Wakahara

Naoki Kimura

Masayuki Tsuchiya

Shigeto Kawai

Masahiro Abe

An inducing agent or enhancing agent, for the expression of HM1.24 antigen in hematopoietic tumor cells, comprising interferon &#x3b1;, interferon &#x3b3;, or the IRF-2 protein as an active ingredient, as well as an antitumor agent for hematopoietic tumors which comprises a combination of said inducing agent or enhancing agent and an antibody against HM1.24.

Therapeutic agent for hematopoietic tumors

An enhancer of expression, in the myeloma cell, of HM1.24 antigen, said enhancer comprising interferon-&#x3b1; or interferon-&#x3b3;, or IRF-2 protein as an active ingredient. Interferon-&#x3b1; or interferon-&#x3b3; is expected to enhance the expression of HM1.24 antigen by activating the promoter of a gene encoding HM1.24 antigen.

Method for treating myeloma utilizing an expression enhancer for HM1.24 antigen

To identify antigens of the 2D7 antibody, the present inventors cloned the 2D7 antigen. The results suggested that the 2D7 antigen is an HLA class I molecule. Based on this finding, the present inventors examined whether the 2D7 antibody has cell death-inducing activity. Nuclei fragmentation was observed when the 2D7 antibody was cross-linked with another antibody, indicating that cell-death was induced. Further, diabodies of the 2D7 antibody were found to have very strong cell death-inducing activities, even without the addition of another antibody. These results indicate that minibodies of an HLA-recognizing antibody can be used as cell death-inducing agents.

Cell death-inducing agent

An inducing agent or enhancing agent, for the expression of HM1.24 antigen in hematopoietic tumor cells, comprising interferon &#x3b1;, interferon &#x3b3;, or the IRF-2 protein as an active ingredient, as well as an anti-tumor agent for hematopoietic tumors which comprises a combination of said inducing agent or enhancing agent and an antibody against HM1.24.

Growing community of inventors

Tokushima, Japan

Shuji Ozaki