Adjuvant blocking & tackling

The challenge for many vaccines is to maximize the CD8 T cell response to disease-specific antigens in order to control or eradicate chronic viral diseases or cancer. To get the most throw weight, many companies are using immune molecules as adjuvants to boost the immune response. But new research shows that to achieve maximal potency, an adjuvant should not only stimulate the immune system by increasing the activity of Th1 CD4 T cells, but also abrogate immune suppression via CD4 suppressor T cells.

In last weeks Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the National Cancer Institute and colleagues at Wyeth (WYE, Madison, N.J.) and the Immunex Corp. subsidiary of Amgen Inc. (AMGN, Thousand Oaks, Calif.) showed that mice had a maximal CD8 T cell response when a peptide vaccine containing HIV sequences was co-administered with GM-CSF, CD40L and IL-13R-Fc, which inhibits IL-13 binding to its receptor...