New Kits, Proteins, and Screening Services for Immunotherapy Drug Discovery from BPS Bioscience

SAN DIEGO - May 29, 2014 - PRLog -- BPS Bioscience, Inc. (“BPS”) has developed several new assay kits (BTLA:HVEM, CD28:B7-1, and CTLA4:B7-1) and related proteins to advance immunotherapy research. These assays enable researchers to easily and quickly screen for agonists or antagonists of these immunoregulatory pathways.  The BTLA:HVEM, CD28:B7-1, and CTLA4:B7-1 kits join BPS’s extensive portfolio of PD-1:PD-L products and services, and its comprehensive panel of 20 different soluble receptor proteins, as unique research tools for drug discovery.

Immunotherapy is defined as the treatment of disease by inducing, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response. Based on the “two signal” model, most immunotherapies regulate the immune response by targeting the co-stimulatory or co-inhibitory pathways of immune activation. These T-cell co-signaling proteins include members of the CD28:B7-1, CTLA4:B7-1, BTLA:HVEM, PD-1:PDL1 and PD-1:PDL2 pathways.

Some of these interactions, such as CD28 binding to B7-1, stimulate the immune response and promote the survival and activation of the target T-cell. Alternately, binding of CTLA4 to B7-1 down-regulates T cell function and inhibits T-cell proliferation. In a similar manner, HVEM engagement of BTLA on effector T-cells or the binding of PD-L1 or PD-L2 proteins on the tumor cell surface to PD-1 expressed on T-cells, also suppress the immune response by inhibiting T-cell activation and allowing cancer cells to evade the immune system.

Regulation of the immune system via these pathways is the key to several therapeutic approaches aimed at enhancing or suppressing the T-cell response. For example, neutralizing antibodies acting as antagonists to CD28 can effectively block T-cell activation, suggesting potential therapeutic value for chronic autoimmune and inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis or transplant rejections.  Alternately, neutralizing antibodies acting as agonists of CD28 are being developed to activate T-cells for cancer treatment. A number of pharmaceutical companies are also focused on developing therapeutic antibodies acting as antagonists for CTLA4, BTLA, PD-1 or PD-L that can prevent this inhibitory immune checkpoint and stimulate T-cells to attack tumor cells. Thus, immunotherapeutic drugs can potentially act as molecular rheostats to fine-tune the immune response.

BPS is the first company to offer assay kits to identify and evaluate candidate inhibitors of the CD28:B7-1, CTLA4:B7-1, BTLA:HVEM, and PD-1:PDL pathways. In addition to these unique assay kits, BPS supplies the individual recombinant proteins and neutralizing antibodies for these pathways, as well as other immunotherapeutic target proteins such as B7-H4, B7-H5, CD47, LAG3, SIRP-α(CD172a), and Tim-3.

BPS Bioscience also provides screening and profiling services to identify agonists or antagonists of the CD28:B7-1, CTLA4:B7-1, BTLA:HVEM, and PD-1:PDL pathways. BPS plans to continue to help researchers move to the forefront of cancer immunotherapy by releasing additional immunomodulatory proteins, assays, and neutralizing antibodies in the coming weeks.

To learn more about BPS’s immunotherapeutic products, please visit our website at http://bpsbioscience.com/cell-surface-receptor. For additional information on BPS’s immunotherapy screening services, please view  http://www.bpsbioscience.com/images/Flyers/PD-1_services.pdf

About BPS Bioscience, Inc.

Headquartered in San Diego, California, BPS Bioscience, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of recombinant enzymes and assay kits for life science research. In addition to its extensive portfolio of cell surface receptors, BPS offers reagents for epigenetic, kinase, phosphodiesterase and other areas of active drug discovery. BPS also provides custom protein expression, biochemical and cell based assays, and compound screening and profiling services. BPS has provided products and services to pharmaceutical companies and academic institutes in over 45 countries worldwide, and it continues to expand its portfolio of innovative drug discovery products. By being at the forefront of technology development, BPS focuses on providing quality life science products and services in a timely manner that will help our customers to accelerate drug discovery and development for treatment of human diseases. Visit BPS’s website for more information: http://www.bpsbioscience.com.