Development of a peptide-vaccine for prevention of the surface caries.

总的来说，肽疫苗最大的优点是其突出的安全性。肽可以根据所需抗原表位的设计自动和自由合成。在研制防龋合成肽疫苗的过程中，我们发现了一个独特的13肽TYEAALKQYEADL，它是一个最小的抗原单位肽，可以诱导针对变形链球菌细胞表面蛋白抗原的交叉抑制抗体。然而，小肽的免疫原性通常非常弱，并且受到MHC II类限制的严格控制。提高多肽的免疫原性，使其不受MHC的限制，是研制多肽疫苗的关键。在本研究项目中，我们成功地开发了原始设计（OMP-KK-U），该设计基于使用B10同源小鼠的动物实验数据，覆盖了人类肽抗原的缺点。

In general, the most advantage of a peptide vaccine is its prominent safety. Peptide can be automatically and freely synthesized in accordance with the design for a desired antigenic epitope. Thus, unnecessary and inconvenient epitopes can be easily avoided from the vaccine.In the course of developing a synthetic peptide vaccine for dental caries, we identified a unique13-mer peptide, TYEAALKQYEADL, as a minimum antigenic unit peptide inducing cross-inhibiting antibodies to a cell surface protein antigen of Streptococcus mutans. However, the immunogenicity of a small peptide is usually very weak and strictly controlled by MHC class II restriction. To develop a peptide vaccine, it is very important to improve the immunogenicity of peptides and to escape from the MHC restriction. In this research project, we have succeded in developing the original design(OMP-KK-U) covering the disadvantages of peptide antigens for a human being on the basis of the data from animal experiments using B10 congenic mice.