METHOD FOR REDUCING THE IMMUNOGENICITY OF HETEROLOGOUS PROTEINS BY ELIMINATION OF T-CELL EPITOPES

摘要

The present invention provides a method for reducing the immunogenicity of a peptide or protein, which method comprises the steps of designing a series of overlappig test peptides each having an amino acid sequence that corresponds with part of the amino acid sequence of the peptide or protein of which the immunogenicity is to be reduced; identifying which of the test peptides of the series comprises one or more T-cell epitope(s); modifying the amino acid sequence of one or more of the test peptides comprising one or more T-cell epitope(s); repeating some of the steps with the modified test peptides until one or more of the T-cell epitopes originally comprised therein are significantly reduced or eliminated; modifying the amino acid sequence of the peptide or protein of which the immunogenicity is to be reduced according to the T-cell eliminating modifications made in the amino acid sequence of the test peptides to produce a modified peptide or protein. The invention also relates to the modified peptides and proteins thus obtained.