An ingenious design for peptide vaccines

Abstract

For humoral immunization, it may be possible to make effective and safe peptide vaccines for various diseases by selection of proper B-cell epitopes. However, a lack of T-cell epitopes on short peptides, such as those associated with major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restriction, is a major problem for peptide vaccine development. We propose a solution for the design of peptide vaccines that involves induction of broadly reactive T-cell epitopes via agretopes. The strategy involves positioning multi-agretope type peptides on the N-terminal side of a di-lysine linker and B-cell epitopes on the C-terminal side. The addition of the arginine-glysine-aspartate (RGD)-motif to the N terminus of the peptide enhances its immunogenicity, and enables nasal immunization without adjuvants.