Patent attributes
The invention relates to novel binding domain-immunoglobulin fusion proteins that feature a binding domain for a cognate structure such as an antigen, a counterreceptor or the like, a wild-type IgG1, IGA or IgE hinge-acting region, i.e., IgE CH2, region polypeptide or a mutant IgG1 hinge region polypeptide having either zero, one or two cysteine residues, and immunoglobulin CH2 and CH3 domains, and that are capable of ADCC and/or CDC while occurring predominantly as polypeptides that are compromised in their ability to form disulfide-linked multimers. The fusion proteins can be recombinantly produced at high expression levels. Also provided are related compositions and methods, including cell surface forms of the fusion proteins and immunotherapeutic applications of the fusion proteins and of polynucleotides encoding such fusion proteins.