Wang Lin-Fa, Yu Meng
CSIRO Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Geelong 3220, Victoria, Australia.
Curr Drug Targets. 2004 Jan;5(1):1-15. doi: 10.2174/1389450043490668.
Antigenic epitopes are the part (contact points) of an antigen involved in specific interaction with the antigen-binding site (the paratope) of an antibody or a T-cell receptor. Detailed analysis of epitopes is important both for the understanding of immunological events and for the development of more effective vaccine and diagnostic tools for various diseases. Identification and characterization of epitopes is a complex process. Although various methods have been developed in this area, there still lacks a simple common approach which can be applied to all epitopes. Since its first introduction more than a decade ago, phage display technology has made a major impact in this area of research. With the exponential growth in this area, it is impractical to review the entire literature detailing all possible applications. Instead, this review aims to focus on specific applications related to the discovery and identification of epitopes which have potential as vaccine candidates or can be used in disease diagnosis.
抗原表位是抗原中与抗体或T细胞受体的抗原结合位点（互补位）发生特异性相互作用的部分（接触点）。表位的详细分析对于理解免疫事件以及开发针对各种疾病的更有效疫苗和诊断工具都很重要。表位的鉴定和表征是一个复杂的过程。尽管该领域已开发出各种方法，但仍缺乏一种可应用于所有表位的简单通用方法。自十多年前首次引入以来，噬菌体展示技术在这一研究领域产生了重大影响。随着该领域的指数级增长，详细回顾所有可能应用的全部文献是不切实际的。相反，本综述旨在聚焦于与表位的发现和鉴定相关的特定应用，这些表位有潜力成为候选疫苗或可用于疾病诊断。
