Abstract: The invention relates to a method of identification of functional disease-specific, in particular tumor-specific, regulatory T cells and markers thereof. The invention also relates to the derived functional tumor-specific regulatory T cells, markers and engineered regulatory T cells and to their use for the diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring and treatment of cancer.

Abstract: Attempts to generate modified viral pseudo-particles that are capable of stably incorporating heterologous antigenic determinants has encountered a number of difficulties including inhibition of pseudo-particle formation following epitope insertion and failure of the epitope to retain its native configuration. The present invention is directed toward recombinant viral pseudo-particles of the family Parvoviridae that stably encode heterologous epitopes. Hybrid virus-like particles (VLP) were prepared by self-assembly of a modified porcine parvovirus (PPV) VP2 capsid protein carrying a CD8+ or CD4+ T cell epitope in the amino terminus. Immunization of mice with hybrid pseudo-particles carrying a lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) nucleoprotein CTL epitope, without adjuvant, induced strong cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses against both peptide-coated- or virus-infected-target cells.