Columbia Technology Ventures

Assay for determining the health of CD8+ T cells

This technology is a method to determine if CD8+ T cells are able to recognize a key signaling molecule involved in the maintenance of immune self-tolerance.

Unmet Need: Method to assess functional recognition of a specific antigen in CD8+ T cells

Current immunotherapeutic drugs have several side effects, including reduced anti-infection and anti-tumor immunity. A previously described “avidity model” to understand how peripheral immune responses, to both self and foreign antigens, are regulated permits clinical interventions to treat autoimmune diseases by selectively inhibiting intermediate avidity T cells. However, while the recognition of T cell targets can be successfully blocked, the actual target structure that can be used for this technique is not known and methods to assay the health of the CD8+ T cells are limited.

The Technology: Assay for determining the health of CD8+ T cells to assess autoimmune disorder risk

This technology is a method to determine the ability of CD8+ T cells to functionally recognize specific antigen target structure, including HLA class I histocompatibility antigen alpha chain E (HLA-E) bound to the signal sequence of Hsp60. The CD8+ T cells are exposed to two populations of cells (loaded with either the antigen of interest or a non-reactive peptide) and the levels of proliferation of each of the test populations of cells are quantified and compared. The resulting levels provide an assessment of the health of the CD8+ T cells, the risk of developing autoimmunity, as well as their potential to respond to corrective therapy.

This technology has been validated in vivo in several mouse models of autoimmune disorders.

Applications:

  • Diagnostic assay for autoimmune type 1 diabetes, graft rejection, infectious disease, and allergic disorders
  • Diagnostic assay for use in monitoring cancer progression
  • Research tool for analyzing T cell reactivity in vitro
  • Development of clinical interventions for autoimmune-related disorders
  • Research tool to guide development of peptide-based vaccines
  • Drug screening

Advantages:

  • Allows development of immunotherapeutic strategies targeting previously unknown mechanisms
  • Assay can be extended to assess recognition of different target antigens in a variety of applications
  • Can be used to assess specificity and side-effect risk of current treatments for immune disorders
  • Enables quantitative investigation into the mechanistic components involved in immune self-tolerance

Lead Inventor:

Hong Jiang, M.D., Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Status

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