These factors mean that different antigens would be protective against different stages of infection. A good example of this is malaria, where the Plasmodium parasite undergoes several stages of development, each of which is antigenically distinct from other stages, and which occur in different anatomical locations. This makes it difficult to target all of the critical phases of the infective process using the whole pathogen from any single stage of selleck compound development. This is one of the key challenges to producing an effective malaria vaccine. (It is not the only

challenge as the immunodominant antigenic site is also subject to ‘segment’ mutation as different protein ‘cassettes’ are inserted at this site.) Some pathogens exist in a latent state within the host, often for the life of the host, or may be protected or hidden from the immune system and are, therefore, not available to the vaccine-induced immune response. Latency is a feature of bacteria, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of tuberculosis), and herpesviruses, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV), varicella zoster and herpes simplex viruses. In addition, some pathogens produce virulence factors that actively suppress or subvert

SB203580 mw host immunity, for example CMV produces proteins that can subvert or evade killing of infected cells by natural killer cells. In this case, vaccine formulation should consider alternative options to a whole-pathogen approach, to try to improve on nature. Research in antigen development has been driven by the reduced immunogenicity sometimes observed with highly attenuated or killed pathogen antigens. The procedure for attenuation or inactivation of the pathogen may remove vital defensive triggers, but could also remove/alter essential protective immunogenic components (epitopes) present in the intact pathogen, in which case the remaining antigens may not induce immune responses that protect the vaccine recipient against the live pathogen. An example of this is the live attenuated Towne vaccine Miconazole strain of CMV which, although

providing some protection against CMV disease in certain settings, is actually less protective than immunity that is acquired naturally following recovery from CMV infection (natural immunity). This strain may have been over-attenuated by multiple (>125) passages through human cell culture, rendering it suboptimally efficacious as a vaccine. Overall, however, when used in vaccines, whole live, attenuated pathogens are highly immunogenic, since both antigenic structures and defensive triggers, which activate the innate immune system (see Chapter 2 – Vaccine immunology) are present. Some of the relative advantages and disadvantages associated with live, attenuated and killed/inactivated vaccines are summarised in Table 3.1.