Subdominance in Antibody Responses: Implications for Vaccine Development.

ABSTRACT: Vaccines work primarily by eliciting antibodies, even when recovery from natural infection depends on cellular immunity. Large efforts have therefore been made to identify microbial antigens that elicit protective antibodies, but these endeavors have encountered major difficulties, as witnessed by the lack of vaccines against many pathogens. This review summarizes accumulating evidence that subdominant protein regions, i.e., surface-exposed regions that elicit relatively weak antibody responses, are of particular interest for vaccine development. This concept may seem counterintuitive, but subdominance may represent an immune evasion mechanism, implying that the corresponding region potentially is a key target for protective immunity. Following a presentation of the concepts of immunodomin

SUBMITTER: Lindahl G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7709521 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature