The PubMed data set was scanned with the title and abstract term "Idiotype" followed by secondary searches with "Vaccine" and "Clinical trial." The retrieved references were analyzed from the period before and after hybridoma technology (1975). In 1963, Oudin and Kunkel discovered that antibodies against antibodies can be raised to identify determinants unique to an antibody termed idiotype or individual antigenic determinant. Two laboratories reported that anti-idiotypic antibodies can suppress specific antibody responses in mice. In 1974, Jerne proposed a network of idiotypes and anti-idiotypes and the functionality of the idiotype network was confirmed. This prompted the proposal of a symmetrical regulatory immune response. By 1989, the concept and the functional parameters of the immune idiotype network were established in the prehybridoma period. It was not until 1981 that monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibodies were used as tools to study the expression of idiotypic determinants on antibodies and to categorize functional properties in the immune network as network antigens in 1989. Hybridoma-generated monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibodies provided the tools to precisely identify different idiotypic regions on antibodies and test these as targets to induce network cascades. The initial distinction of Ab2s as alpha and beta were expanded to include gamma and delta. The initial concept of Ab2beta being an antigen internal image, used as vaccine, was challenged showing that targeting all idiotopes on B cell receptors can induce specific antibodies. After the discovery of the hybridoma technology a wave of idiotype topic publications occurred, that declined by 2015. In 1985, in this wave of reports on anti-idiotypes, their importance to vaccines dominated. These vaccines targeted in animal models parasite, bacterial, and viral diseases, and cancer. The reported data indicated a therapeutic response in inbred mice. The issue of idiotype matching between mouse haplotypes of vaccine origin and treated mice were raised. In 1995, the human clinical trials in different cancers using anti-Id vaccines were reported. Only one such vaccine received conditional approval in Argentina and Cuba, whereas the other trials failed in phase II and III. The reasons for this failure were subsequently discussed. Although the use of the Milstein and Kohler hybridoma technology and subsequently alternative methods to produce monoclonal animal and human antibodies created a new class of drugs, commonly referred as "Biological," it failed on the promise therapeutic of anti-Id vaccines.
Keywords: human clinical trials; hybridoma technology; idiotypic antibodies.