Mass Spectrometry and Peptide-based Vaccine Development

• Published in: Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics 2007-12, Vol.82 (6), p.644-652
• Main Authors: Ovsyannikova, I G, Johnson, K L, Bergen, H R, Poland, G A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Bacterial Vaccines; Biological and medical sciences; CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes; Drug Design; Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; Histocompatibility Antigens Class I; Histocompatibility Antigens Class II; HLA Antigens; Humans; Isotopes; Measles virus - immunology; Medical sciences; Peptides; Pharmacology. Drug treatments; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; Vaccines; Vaccinia virus - immunology; Viral Vaccines
• ISSN: 0009-9236; 1532-6535
• DOI: 10.1038/sj.clpt.6100389

The development of new vaccines against pathogens is an important part of infectious disease control. In the last decade, a variety of proteins giving rise to naturally processed pathogen‐derived antigenic peptides, representing B‐cell and T‐cell epitopes, have been characterized. Numerous candidate vaccines consisting of synthetic peptides are being designed and evaluated, with encouraging results. In this context, the application of mass spectrometry based on the isolation and identification of pathogen‐derived peptides from the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules is a major focus of peptide‐based vaccine development. Dramatic improvements have been made in mass spectrometer performance for peptide sequencing in terms of increased sensitivity, the ability to rapidly obtain data‐directed tandem mass spectra, and the accuracy of mass measurement. This review focuses on the efforts to identify T‐cell epitopes for viral and microbial pathogens for directed vaccine development. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2007) 82, 644–652. doi:10.1038/sj.clpt.6100389; published online 31 October 2007