Patent ID: 8685939

Claim:
A vaccine for inducing agonist antibodies in a mammalian subject against the cellular death receptor DR5 expressed by target cells of the mammalian subject, said vaccine comprising an effective amount of a naked DNA expression vector including an isolated nucleic acid sequence encoding an antigenic fusion polypeptide consisting of the extracellular (ec) domain of DR5 fused to the transmembrane (tm) domain of DR5, and a nontoxic fragment of tetanus toxin fused to said tm domain, wherein said ec and tm domains are selected from the group consisting of the ec and tm domains of murine DR5 and the ec and tm domains of human DR5, and said nontoxic fragment of tetanus toxin consists of toxin fragment C domain 1 (td1), wherein said expression vector induces the expression of said antigenic fusion polypeptide in the mammalian subject, wherein said agonist antibodies induced in response to said vaccine agonize DR5 expressed by the target cells of the mammalian subject, to trigger apoptosis in the target cells, and said vaccine further including an effective amount of granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as an adjuvant.