DDA as an immunological adjuvant.

As compared to other adjuvants, DDA is a moderate or strong adjuvant for humoral responses and a strong adjuvant for CMI, especially DTH responses, against different types of antigens and in both laboratory animals and larger animals. DDA can collaborate with other immunomodulating compounds resulting in further enhanced responses. Mechanisms include interactions with both antigen and components of the host immune system and possibly, multiple beneficial effects contribute to the relatively strong adjuvanticity of DDA. Toxicity of DDA is not known but severe detrimental side effects were not seen. This adjuvant can be applied in experimental vaccines and in commercial vaccines for veterinary purposes, especially if cell-mediated immunity is considered to be important. In immunology, DDA can be of use to study T helper cells responsible for DTH responses (T helper cells type 1) and to characterize T helper cell epitopes on antigens (Snijder et al., 1992).