The development of clinically useful peptide‐based vaccines remains a long‐standing goal. This review highlights that intrinsically disordered protein antigens, which lack an ordered three‐dimensional structure, represent excellent starting points for the development of such vaccines. Disordered proteins represent an important class of antigen in a wide range of human pathogens, and, contrary to widespread belief, they are frequently targets of protective antibody responses. Importantly, disordered epitopes appear invariably to be linear epitopes, rendering them ideally suited to incorporation into a peptide vaccine. Nonetheless, the conformational properties of disordered antigens, and hence their recognition by antibodies, frequently depend on the interactions they make and the context in which they are presented to the immune system. These effects must be considered in the design of an effective vaccine. Here we discuss these issues and propose design principles that may facilitate the development of peptide vaccines targeting disordered antigens.

中文翻译：

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作为肽疫苗的无序表位。


开发临床上有用的肽疫苗仍然是一个长期目标。这篇综述强调，本质上无序的蛋白质抗原缺乏有序的三维结构，是开发此类疫苗的绝佳起点。无序蛋白质代表了多种人类病原体中的一类重要抗原，并且与普遍看法相反，它们经常是保护性抗体反应的目标。重要的是，无序表位似乎总是线性表位，这使得它们非常适合掺入肽疫苗中。尽管如此，无序抗原的构象特性以及抗体对它们的识别通常取决于它们产生的相互作用以及它们呈现给免疫系统的环境。在设计有效疫苗时必须考虑这些影响。在这里，我们讨论这些问题并提出可能有助于开发针对紊乱抗原的肽疫苗的设计原则。