7 They generally contain

two different types of activities that are critical for inducing adaptive immune responses to soluble Ags: the vehicle for Ag delivery; and the immune-activating fraction. The Ag vehicle consists of mineral salts (alum), oil emulsion, liposomes or microparticles and promotes the efficient uptake of Ag by Ag-presenting cells (APCs), Ag delivery to the secondary lymphoid organ and the formation of an Ag depot at the site of immunization.8 Some vehicles (water-in-oil emulsions, aluminum salt) promote long-term Ag depot at the site of injection, while others (oil-in-water emulsions, liposomes) are more easily dispersed.9 Importantly, adjuvant vehicles also have some immunostimulatory properties in vivo that are still being CAL-101 characterized.10–12 However, they are usually insufficient to induce robust adaptive responses.13 Most adjuvants also contain ligands for pathogen recognition receptors, ROCK inhibitor such as Toll-like receptors (TLR), leading to the activation of the innate immune system. TLR agonists act directly on DCs, inducing the up-regulation of cytokines, MHC class II and costimulatory molecules, and promote DC migration to the T-cell area of the lymph node (LN).14 In animals, two of the most potent adjuvants – complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA) and the monophosphoryl Lipid A (MPL)-based adjuvant system [Ribi adjuvant system (RAS)] – consist

of oil emulsion (water-in-oil emulsion for CFA and oil-in-water emulsion for RAS) carrying immunostimulants (heat-killed mycobacteria for CFA and the TLR4 agonist MPL for RAS). In humans, a new adjuvant system such as AS04 (manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline), used in vaccines against cervical cancer (Cervarix) and hepatitis B virus (Fendrix15,16), combines a clinical-grade version of MPL and aluminum salts. While adjuvants have been used for decades to enhance adaptive immune responses to Ag,7,17 their mechanisms of action are still poorly characterized, even for those more widely used in preclinical and clinical settings.10–12 Although adjuvants are primarily used to enhance adaptive immune responses, several

studies described below have shown that they can also influence the specificity and/or clonotypic diversity of the CD4 T-cell responses. Earlier studies using congenic mouse strains have shown that selleck chemicals the capacity to mount antibody responses against purified protein Ags was controlled by MHCII genes.18 This MHC control of the antibody response can be attributed to the absence of CD4 T-cell epitopes capable of binding MHC class II, holes in the TCR repertoire or defects in the Ag-presentation pathway.19 For two different malaria vaccines, however, injecting the Ag in an MPL-based emulsion instead of CFA was sufficient to overcome the MHC control of the antibody response and to trigger antibody responses against malaria Ag in otherwise unresponsive mouse strains.