USE OF MUTEINS OF WILD-TYPE CYTOKINES AS IMMUNOGENS

摘要

These are pharmaceutical compounds used to treat or prevent diseases caused by the over-production of a specific wild-type cytokine, characterised by the fact that they contain as an active principle at least one mutant of that wild-type cytokine. In its widest scope the invention consists in the use of muteins of a specific wild-type cytokine, that are also receptor antagonists of the latter, as immunogens to elicit antibodies directed against this wild-type cytokine and capable of neutralising it in those diesases caused by its excessive production. Figure 4 shows that antibodies developed in NSF/hIL-6 transgenic mice immunised with a human interleukin 6 mutein are capable of recognising wild-type interleukin 6 and of neutralising its biological activity.