Fluorinated Lipids Conjugated to Peptide Antigens do not Induce Immune Responses Against Cervical Cancer

Waleed M. Hussein, Saori Mukaida, Tzu-Yu Liu, Istvan Toth and Mariusz Skwarczynski*

Fluorinated Lipids Conjugated to Peptide Antigens do not Induce Immune Responses Against Cervical Cancer

Vaccination is one of the most effective implements for decreasing
the occurrence of infectious diseases. Peptide subunit-based vaccines
have many advantages as they are more safe, stable and easy to manufacture
compared to the traditional vaccines bearing live attenuated or
inactivated pathogens.

These modern vaccines contain only the least immunogenic section of
an antigen required to elicit the desired immune response.
However, the use of peptides alone is not sufficient to stimulate the immune system.
Therefore, an adjuvant/delivery system is the necessary component to trigger
an immune response against the peptide antigen.

The adaptive immune response generates a long-term pathogen-specific
immune response through the generation of a broad amount of different
antigen receptors and by the propagation of memory B- and T-cells.

Cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) can kill infected cells by cytotoxic action while
the B-cells produce pathogen-specific antibodies. Both of these
mechanisms are assisted by T-helper cells. For production of
a therapeutic and/or protective immunity, stimulation of CTLs
and/or B-cells by vaccination is essential.

Recently, we tested in vivo the ability of peptide-based vaccines
including fluorinated lipids in a conjugation with J14 B-cell peptide epitope to
produce protective IgG antibodies against J14 antigen

It was demonstrated that fluorinated constructs can induce effective
humoral immune response once they form nanoparticles. A high
antibody titer was produced by fluorinated vaccines, similar to
those induced by the positive control (J14 mixed with powerful
Complete Freund’s Adjuvant and higher than those produced
by non-fluorinated analogues.

Vaccin Res Open J. 2017; 2(1): 7-12. doi: 10.17140/VROJ-2-107