Patent ID: 7354909

Claim:
A method for generating a mature dendritic cell, comprising contacting a dendritic cell precursor with an effective amount of an oligodeoxynucleotide of at least about 16 nucleotides in length comprising a sequence represented by the following formula: 5â€²X 1 X 2 X 3 Pu 1 Py 2 CpGPu 3 Py 4 X 4 X 5 X 6 (W) M (G) N âˆ’3â€² wherein the central CpG motif is unmethylated, Pu is a purine nucleotide, Py is a pyrimidine nucleotide, X and W are any nucleotide, M is any integer from 0 to 10, and N is any integer from 4 to 10, wherein X 1 X 2 X 3 Pu 1 Py 2 and Pu 3 Py 4 X 4 X 5 X 6 are self complementary, thereby generating a mature dendritic cell.