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 wildtype 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 wildtype cytokine and capable of neutralising it in those diesases caused by its excessive production. Figure 4 shows that antibodies developed in NSE/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.