title: Epitope discovery and their use in peptide based vaccines.
abstract: With recent advances in the design and delivery of peptide-based therapeutics there has been a growing interest on the use of peptides in vaccine design. Moreover, functional dissection and proteomic analysis of the immunogenic epitopes of proteins from pathogenic micro-organisms, cancers and self-tissues targeted by autoimmune responses, have broadened the range of target epitopes and given clues to enhancing peptide immunogenicity. Consistent with these observations; peptides can be synthesised with defined chemical modifications to mimic natural epitopes and/or deliberately introduce 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 epitope discovery and 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: Nadine L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Dudek
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Perlmutter
authors.forename: Marie-Isabel
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Aguilar
authors.forename: Nathan P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Croft
authors.forename: Anthony W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Purcell
mesh_terms: D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods*; D000939:Epitopes / Q000737:chemistry*; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D018448:Models, Immunological; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000276:immunology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit / Q000276:immunology / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D000939:Epitopes; D006680:HLA Antigens; D010455:Peptides; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit