Compositions and Methods for Treatment of Neoplastic Disease

Abstract

The present invention comprises compositions and methods for treating a tumor or neoplastic disease in a host, The methods employ conjugates comprising superantigen polypeptides or nucleic acids with other structures that preferentially bind to tumor cells and are capable of inducing apoptosis. Also provided are superantigen-glycolipid conjugates and vesicles that are loaded onto antigen presenting cells to activate both T cells and NKT cells. Cell-based vaccines comprise tumor cells engineered to express a superantigen along with glycolipids products which, when expressed, render the cells capable of eliciting an effective anti-tumor immune response in a mammal into which these cells are introduced. Included among these compositions are tumor cells, hybrid cells of tumor cells and accessory cells, preferably dendritic cells. Also provided are T cells and NKT cells activated by the above compositions that can be administered for adoptive immunotherapy.

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         3 . A method of treating a subject with a carcinoma of the lung or pleura originating from a lung or breast carcinoma comprising administering to said subject intravenously by infusion or injection a tumoricidally effective amount of a composition consisting of:
 (i) a biologically active variant, mutant or fragment of a wild type  staphylococcal  enterotoxin, which variant, mutant or fragment:
 (a) has the biological activity of stimulating T cell mitogenesis via a T cell receptor vβ region and 
 (b) has sequence homology to a native  staphylococcal  enterotoxin or a  streptococcal  pyrogenic exotoxin as determined by FASTA or FASTP and Monte Carlo analysis according to the algorithms of W. R. Pearson and D. J. Lipman, wherein a sequence is a homologue if it has a z value greater than 10 when compared to the sequence of said wild type enterotoxin; or 
   (ii) a biologically active fusion protein having said biological activity and said sequence homology, comprising said enterotoxin mutant, variant or fragment fused to a polypeptide fusion partner.