Self antigen vaccines for treating B cell lymphomas and other cancers

1. A method of producing a polypeptide self-antigen useful as a tumor-specific vaccine in a subject with a B-cell lymphoma or at risk of developing a B-cell lymphoma, wherein a first domain and a second domain of the polypeptide self-antigen are encoded by at least in part by a nucleic acid in the cells of said B-cell lymphoma, which polypetride comprises two peptide domains connected to each other by a peptide linker, and said polypeptide includes an epitope or epitopes unique to, or overexpressed by, cells of said B-cell lymphoma, thereby distinguishing said B-cell lymphoma from normal cells and/or all other tumors (i) of the same or different histological type, (ii) in said subject or in another member of said subject's species, comprising the steps of:

(a) joining a nucleic acid encoding the first domain of the polypeptide to a nucleic acid encoding a first part of a linker to produce a first nucleic acid construct;

(b) joining the first nucleic acid construct encoding a second part of the linker to a nucleic acid encoding the second domain of the polypeptide to produce a second nucleic acid construct;

(c) incorporating said second nucleic acid construct into a plant expression vector in frame so that, when expressed, the polypeptide bears the first and second domain separated by the linker;

(d) transfecting a plant with the vector so that the plant is capable of producing the polypeptide;

(e) producing the polypeptide; and

(f) recovering the polypeptide as a soluble, correctly-folded protein,

wherein the polypeptide recovered from said plant or plant cell is in correctly folded form, without a need for denaturation and renaturation and mimics said epitope or epitopes in their native form and is capable of inducing an immune response in a mammal, including said subject, without a need for adjuvant or other immunostimulatory materials, so that administration of said polypeptide results in an antibody or cell-mediated immune response to said epitope or epitopes, and

wherein the polypetide is a single chain the first domain is the Ig V H domain and the second domain is Ig V L domain, both of which domains create an idiotype of a surface Ig of said B cell lymphoma, and wherein said polypeptide induces an idiotype-specific response directed to said B-cell lymphoma upon administration to a subject.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the plant is a plant cell.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising mixing said polypeptide with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier or excipient.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the plant expression vector is a transient plant expression vector that transiently produces the polypeptide.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the polypeptide is an immunoglobulin.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the epitope or epitopes is a CDR.

7. The method of claim 3 further comprising mixing the polypeptide with an adjuvant.

8. The method of claim 3 further comprising mixing the polypeptide with an immunostimulatory cytokine or a chemokine.

9. The method of claim 3 wherein the immunostimulatory cytokine or a chemokine is GM-CSF.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said domains are linked by an amino acid linker that (a) has between one and about 50 residues; (b) consists of between one and 12 different amino acids, and (c) facilitates secretion and correct folding of said polypeptide to mimic the B-cell lymphoma epitope in its native form in or on said B-cell lymphoma cell.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the linker is a member of a randomized library of linkers that vary in size and sequence, and said library is encoded by nucleic acid sequences consisting of a repeated pattern of degenerate repeated triplet nucleotides having the following requirements; (i) position 1 of each repeated triplet cannot be the same nucleotide as position 2 of the repeated triplet; (ii) position 2 of each repeated triplet cannot be the same nucleotide as position 3 of the repeated triplet; or (iii) position 1 of each repeated triplet cannot be the same nucleotide as position 3 of the repeated triplet.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the nucleotide in the first and second positions of each repeated triplet is selected from any two of deoxyadenosine, deoxyguanosine, deoxycytidine or deoxythymidine.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein (i) position 1 of each repeated triplet is deoxyadenosine or deoxyguanosine; (ii) position 2 of each repeated triplet is deoxycytidine or deoxyguanosine; and (iii) position 3 of each repeated triplet is deoxythymidine.