Patent ID: 8202847

Claim:
A method immunizing an individual against an immunogen comprising administering a composition comprising a) a nucleic acid sequence comprising a human CD80 mutant protein coding sequence operably linked to regulatory elements, wherein said human CD80 mutant protein coding sequence encodes a human CD80 mutant protein that comprises at least one of 80V, 80tm and 80ct and is free of all or part of the CD80 C region; wherein said CD80 mutant that is free of all or part of the CD80 C region comprises either 80V or 86ct or both and optionally comprises one or more of 86C, 80tm, 86tm, 80ct and 86ct wherein: 80V is the variable domain of human CD80; 86V is the variable domain of a human CD86; 86C is the C domain of human CD86; 80tm is the transmembrane region of human CD80; 86tm is the transmembrane region of a human CD86; 80ct is the cytoplasmic tail of human CD80; 86ct is the cytoplasmic tail of human CD86; wherein said human CD80 mutant protein possesses costimulatory activity of wild type CD80 and does not provide the negative signal associated with wild type human CD80 C region interactions with human CTLA4, and b) a nucleic acid sequence comprising a coding sequence operably linked to regulatory elements, wherein said coding sequence that encodes said immunogen.