Heat shock proteins ‘mechanism of action’ diagram

1. Produced from patient’s own cancerous tissue or cells, Antigenics’ cancer vaccines Oncophage and AG-858 consist of purified heat shock proteins (HSPs) complexed to pieces of proteins (peptides) that are specific to each patient’s individual cancer. The purified HSPs are vialed as sterile, injectable vaccine, to be administered on an outpatient basis over the course of several weeks.
2. At the site of injection there are dendritic cells (type of specialized immune cell), which recognize and take in the HSP-peptide complexes. Inside the cell, the peptides are transferred onto molecules that can present the abnormal peptides on the cell surface, where the cancer-specific peptides are made visible to the immune system.
3. Antigenics’ HSP-based cancer vaccines are designed to trigger a cancer-specific immune response and to leave healthy cells alone. The immune system’s T cells (yellow) recognize the displayed peptides, become specifically activated, then divide and travel throughout the body to identify and kill cancer cells bearing these specific peptides (purple).