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With years of experience in the field of immunology and oncology research, Creative BioMart is able to support all aspects of your immune checkpoint research. Equipped with featured platform and techniques, we offer the most comprehensive immune checkpoints related research services including protein expression, protein purification, antibody discovery, functional assay, binding and interaction assay, Co-IP and protein analysis, for a better understanding of their physiological functions and provide CRO services for industries.

Introduction to Immune checkpoints

As the regulators of the immune system, immune checkpoints have attracted lots of attention from scientists who are focused on cancer treatment. There are two main types of immune checkpoints for regulating the antigen recognition of T cell receptor (TCR) in the process of immune response, co-stimulatory checkpoints and inhibitory checkpoints, respectively. These immune checkpoint molecules can protect normal tissues from damage when immune system attacks pathogens. For example, activated T cells release interferon gamma (IFN-γ) which is a cytokine responsible for increasing expression of inhibitory checkpoints including cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 (CTLA-4) and programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) to downregulate immune response. Oppositely, co-stimulatory checkpoints like inducible T cell co-stimulator (ICOS) and tumor necrosis factor superfamily member4 (TNRFSRF4 or OX40) perform activating immune system function. However, the cancer cells are able to escape from immune attack via dysregulating immune checkpoints related targets. Therefore, in the immunotherapy of cancer, it is essential to amplify co-stimulation and decrease inhibition functions to overcome self-tolerance to cancer. Over these years, two immune checkpoint molecules including CTLA4 and PD-1 have been discovered and applied into clinical therapy, and four CTLA4 and PD-1 inhibitors have already been released in the pharmaceutical market all over the world. Scientists are devoted to discover novel biomarkers in T-cell modulations. In the future, there should be more therapies based on immune checkpoints for various cancers.

Figure 1. Immune checkpoints pathway. (Julian A. et al. 2018)

Reference

1. Julian A. et al. 2018 "Next generation of immune checkpoint therapy in cancer: new developments and challenges" Journal of Hematology & Oncology 11. 39 (2018)

• Immune Checkpoint Protein Expression
• Immune Checkpoint Protein Purification
• Immune Checkpoint Antibody Discovery
• Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Functional Assay
• Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Binding and Interaction Assay
• Quantitative Immune Checkpoint Protein Analysis