title: More than one reason to rethink the use of peptides in vaccine design.
abstract: The use of peptides as therapeutics is experiencing renewed enthusiasm owing to advances in delivery, stability and design. Moreover, there is a growing emphasis on the use of peptides in vaccine design as insights into tissue-specific processing of the immunogenic epitopes of proteins and the discovery of unusually long cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitopes broaden the range of targets and give clues to enhancing peptide immunogenicity. Peptides can also be synthesized with known post-translational modifications and/or deliberately introduced protease-resistant peptide bonds to regulate their processing independent of tissue-specific proteolysis and to stabilize these compounds in vivo. We discuss the potential of peptide-based vaccines for the treatment of chronic viral diseases and cancer, and review recent developments in the field of peptide-based vaccines.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Anthony W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Purcell
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCluskey
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rossjohn
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D015202:Protein Engineering; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit / Q000276:immunology*; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D022223:Vaccines, Subunit; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic