title: Multi-epitope DNA vaccines.
abstract: The evolution of vaccine strategies has seen a move from whole organisms to recombinant proteins, and further towards the ultimate in minimalist vaccinology, the epitope. The epitope-based approach is clearly compelling as only a relatively tiny, but immunologically relevant, sequence is often capable of inducing protective immunity against a large and complex pathogen. The post-reductionist era in epitope-based vaccinology has seen a quest to re-construct complexity and design vaccines containing many epitopes. The hope is that such multi-epitope vaccines might induce immunity against multiple antigenic targets, multiple strain variants, and/or even multiple pathogens. The ability of DNA vaccination to co-deliver a series of antibody and/or CD4 T cell epitopes remains largely unexplored. Successful viral vector and DNA-based experimental vaccines coding for multiple contiguous CD8 CTL epitopes have, however, recently been described. This simple CTL poly-epitope (or polytope) strategy may find application in the design of vaccines against several diseases including EBV, HIV and cancer.
authors.affiliation: Cooperative Research Centre for Vaccine Technology, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia. andreasS@qimr.edu.au
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Suhrbier
mesh_terms: D015704:CD4 Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D019496:Cancer Vaccines; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D006678:HIV / Q000276:immunology; D004854:Herpesvirus 4, Human / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods; D008545:Melanoma / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology; D014611:Vaccination / Q000379:methods; D019444:Vaccines, DNA; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic; D014765:Viral Vaccines
chemical_list: D015704:CD4 Antigens; D019496:Cancer Vaccines; D000939:Epitopes; D019444:Vaccines, DNA; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic; D014765:Viral Vaccines