Patent ID: 6861234

Claim:
A method of epitope discovery comprising the steps of: choosing a neoplastic target cell; identifying a proteasome activity of the target cell, wherein said proteasome is either a housekeeping proteasome or an immune proteasome; and selecting an epitope from a population of peptide fragments of an antigen associated with the target cell, wherein the antigen is selected from the group consisting of MelanA (MART-1), gp100 (Pmel 17), tyrosinase, RP-1, TRP-2, MAGE-1, MAGE-3, BAGE, GAGE-1, GAGE-2, CEA, RAGE, NY-ESO, SCP-1, Hom/Mel-40, PRAME, p53, H-Ras, HER-2/neu, BCR-ABL, E2A-PRL, H4-RET, IGH-IGK, MYL-RAR, Epstein Barr virus antigens, EBNA, human papillomavirus (HPV) antigens E6 and E7, TSP-180, MAGE-4, MAGE-5, MAGE-6, p185erbB2, p180crbB-3, c-met, nm-23H1, PSA, TAG-72-4, CAM 17.1, NuMa, K-ras, β-Catenin, CDK1, Mum-1, and p16, and wherein the fragments have a known or predicted affinity for a major histocompatibility complex class I receptor peptide binding cleft, wherein the epitope selected corresponds to a cleavage product associated with said proteasome activity of the target cell.