Peptide therapy for Type I diabetes: the immunological homunculus and the rationale for vaccination.
The autoimmune process that produces Type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus seems to respond favourably to therapeutic vaccination with a peptide of the 60 kDa heat shock protein. This article is a personal review of the observations and the thinking that gave rise to the idea of therapeutic peptide vaccination. The rationale for vaccination therapy is compared to other approaches aimed at specific immunological treatment for autoimmune disease.
Cohen
I R
IR
The Department of Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Irun.Cohen@weizmann.ac.il
D000818:Animals; D018834:Chaperonin 60 / Q000276:immunology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D016688:Mice, Inbred NOD; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D018834:Chaperonin 60; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit