The Tübingen approach: identification, selection, and validation of tumor-associated HLA peptides for cancer therapy.

There is substantial need for molecularly defined tumor antigens to prime cytotoxic T cells in vivo for cancer immunotherapy, especially in the case of tumor entities for which only a few tumor antigens have been defined so far. In this review, we present the "Tübingen approach" to identify, select, and validate large numbers of MHC/HLA class I-associated peptides derived from tumor-associated antigens. Step 1 is the identification of naturally presented HLA-associated peptides directly from primary tumor cells.

Mechanisms of MHC class I-restricted antigen presentation.

The vertebrate immune system monitors whether an organism is invaded by pathogens. Therefore, each cell has to prove itself as healthy. This is achieved by presenting fragments of intracellular protein degradation products on the surface, i.

Ubiquitylation of BAG-1 suggests a novel regulatory mechanism during the sorting of chaperone substrates to the proteasome.

BAG-1 is a ubiquitin domain protein that links the molecular chaperones Hsc70 and Hsp70 to the proteasome. During proteasomal sorting BAG-1 can cooperate with another co-chaperone, the carboxyl terminus of Hsc70-interacting protein CHIP. CHIP was recently identified as a Hsp70- and Hsp90-associated ubiquitin ligase that labels chaperone-presented proteins with the degradation marker ubiquitin.