METHOD FOR ALTERING UNDESIRABLE IMMUNE RESPONSES TO POLYPEPTIDES

摘要

The disclosed method involves providing a collection of mutant polypeptides where the amino acid sequence of each mutant polypeptide differs in at least one position from a polypeptide of interest, identifying mutant polypeptides that exhibit less of the immune response than the polypeptide of interest, a nd identifying mutant polypeptides with less potential for eliciting an undesirable immune response that still retain the desired characteristic(s). The collection of mutant polypeptides can be provided by mutagenizing nuclei c acid encoding a polypeptide of interest and expressing the mutagenized nucle ic acid to produce mutant polypeptides. The method is especially useful for reducing immune responses involving both linear and/or conformational epitop es on a polypeptide of interest. This is possible because the recombinant polypeptides used as substrates for mutagenesis in the method are essentiall y full length, remaining structurally similar to the polypeptide of interest a nd displaying essentially the same conformational epitopes.