Abstract: The invention concerns cysteine protease capturing agents capable of highly selective and irreversible binding of the corresponding cysteine protease. Such compounds may have utility in fundamental biological research and diagnostics, e.g. involving labeled or immobilized versions of such compounds, and they may also have potential utility in therapy, based on competitive inhibition of the cysteine protease, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. The present inventors have discovered that such capturing agents can be obtained by modification of a cleavage fragment of a ‘natural’ substrate for the cysteine protease of interest, said modification involving the introduction of a propargyl moiety in such a way that the terminal alkyne group is positioned to allow for interaction with the free thiol group of the cysteine residue at the active site of the protease.

Abstract: The invention relates to the field of 26S proteasome inhibition, activation and modulation and to identify compounds which activate 26S proteasome in live cells and a method of treating autoimmune diseases, cancer, inflammation and neurogenerative disorders by inhibition, activation and modulation of the 26S proteasome.

Abstract: The invention is concerned with epitopes derived from human papilloma virus, and peptides having a size of about 22-45 amino acid residues comprising minimal T cell epitopes. The invention further provides clinically relevant approaches for immunizing subjects against (Myco)bacterially and/or virally infected cells or tumor cells, and in particular against HPV. The invention demonstrates that peptide sequences of 22-35 amino acid residues in length can induce both peptide-specific CD8+ cytolytic cells and CD4+ T-helper cells. Moreover, the invention demonstrates that vaccination with 22-35 residue long peptides results in a more vigorous CD8+ cytolytic T-cell response than vaccination with peptides of the exact minimal CTL epitope length. The invention further demonstrates that the intrinsic capacity of certain minimal CTL epitopes which instead of activating cytolytic effector cells tolerize these cytolytic cells, can be overcome by use of these 22-35 amino acid long peptides.