Liu Zuqiang, Xiao Yi, Chen Ying-Hua
Laboratory of Immunology, Research Center for Medical Science, Department of Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China.
Immunobiology. 2003;208(4):423-8. doi: 10.1078/0171-2985-00286.
Vaccines play important roles in preventing infectious diseases caused by different pathogens. However, some pathogens such as HIV-1 challenge current vaccine strategy. Poor immunogenicity and the high mutation rate of HIV-1 make great difficulties in inducing potent immune responses strong enough to prevent infection via vaccination. Epitope-vaccine, which could intensively enhance predefined epitope-specific immune responses, was suggested as a new strategy against HIV-1 and HIV-1 mutation. Epitope-vaccines afford powerful approaches to elicit potent, broad and complete immune protection against not only primary homologous viral isolates but also heterologous viral mutants. Although most studies are still preliminary now, epitope-vaccine as a novel strategy against the AIDS epidemic has great developmental potential. To trigger T-cell-dependent IgG antibody responses and improve affinities of the epitope-specific antibodies, approaches such as recombinant multi-epitope-vaccination and prime-boosting vaccination were suggested. Cellular immune responses, especially CTL responses, could also be elicited and enhanced in addition to humoral immune responses. Developed epitope-vaccines activating both arms of the immune system would benefit prevention and immunotherapy not only against HIV but also other chronic infections.
疫苗在预防由不同病原体引起的传染病方面发挥着重要作用。然而，一些病原体，如HIV-1，对当前的疫苗策略构成挑战。HIV-1的免疫原性差和高突变率使得通过接种疫苗诱导出足以预防感染的有效免疫反应面临巨大困难。表位疫苗能够强烈增强预定义的表位特异性免疫反应，被认为是一种对抗HIV-1及其突变的新策略。表位疫苗提供了强大的方法，不仅可以针对原发性同源病毒分离株，还可以针对异源病毒突变体引发有效、广泛和全面的免疫保护。尽管目前大多数研究仍处于初步阶段，但表位疫苗作为一种对抗艾滋病流行的新策略具有巨大的发展潜力。为了引发T细胞依赖性IgG抗体反应并提高表位特异性抗体的亲和力，人们提出了重组多表位疫苗接种和初免-加强接种等方法。除了体液免疫反应外，还可以引发和增强细胞免疫反应，特别是CTL反应。开发能够激活免疫系统两个分支的表位疫苗不仅将有益于预防和免疫治疗HIV，还将有益于预防和免疫治疗其他慢性感染。
