Molecular vaccines

Sheikh, N.A., M. al-Shamisi, and W.J. Morrow, Delivery systems for molecular vaccination. Curr Opin Mol Ther, 2000. 2(1) 37-54. 

It is expected that in the near future antigen-specific vaccines will be applied effectively to induce strong T cell immune responses in patients displaying less progressed stages of disease. A comprehensive discussion on the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines (molecular vaccines) has been presented by Moingeon (2001) and Monzavi-Karbassi and Kieber-Emmons (2001). 

Part of the characterization of a protein encountered in the attempted development of a vaccine to the hepatitis E virus involved the determination of its molecular weight [7]. 

Parisi, L. and von Hunolstein, C., Determination of the molecular size distribution of Haemophilus influenzae type b-tetanus toxoid conjugate vaccines by size-exclusion chromatography, /. Chromatogr. A, 847, 209, 1999. 

The adamantane moiety is of medicinal chemical interest because of its inertness, compactness relative to lipid solubilizing character, and symmetry. Considerable interest, therefore, was engendered by the finding that amantadine (78) was active for the chemoprophylaxis of influenza A in man. There are not many useful chemotherapeutic agents available for the treatment of communicable viral infections, so this finding led to considerable molecular manipulation. The recent abrupt end of the National Influenza Immunization program of 1976 prompted a new look at the nonvaccine means for prophylaxis or treatment of respiratory tract infections due to influenza A, especially in that the well-known antigenic shift or drift of the virus obviates usefulness of the vaccine but not amantadine. 

Whereas molecular design is a strategy applicable to the chemical level of epitope-paratope interactions, it cannot be used for optimizing the many cellular interactions required for achieving an immune response that leads to infectivity neutralization of a pathogen. As a result, the future development of vaccines will continue to rely more on the empirical testing of the protection afforded by candidate vaccine preparations than on the rational design of biomolecules defined in a reductionist manner by their chemical structure. 

Van Regenmortel, M. H. V. (1999c), Molecular design versus empirical discovery in peptide-based vaccines. Coming to terms with fuzzy recognition sites and ill-defined structure-function relationships in immunology , Vaccine, 18, 216-221. 

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