POLARITY OF IMMUNOGENS - IMPLICATIONS FOR VACCINE DESIGN

Peptide constructs have been engineered consisting of amino acid sequence determinant recognized by T cells (TD) co‐linearly linked to haptenic peptides. It was found that high anti‐hapten antibody titers were induced after immunization with those constructs which had the TD sequence in the N‐terminal position with respect to the hapten. Low or zero titers were elicited when the TD was in C‐terminal position. Also, a high anti‐hapten antibody titer corresponded to a low or zero anti‐TD antibody titer and vice versa. These results suggest that immunogens are polar and stress the relevance of searching the more adequate position of the TD within a peptide construct when designing immunogens or synthetic peptide vaccines. Copyright © 1990 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA