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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Homogeneous Glycoconjugate Produced by Combined Unnatural Amino Acid Incorporation and Click-Chemistry for Vaccine Purposes
Published on: December 19, 2020
An ingenious design for peptide vaccines
Akira Yano1, Atsuko Onozuka, Yasuko Asahi-Ozaki
1Department of Oral Health, National Institute of Public Health, Minami 2-3-6, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0197, Japan. akiray@niph.go.jp
For humoral immunization, it may be possible to make effective and safe peptide vaccines for various diseases by selection of proper B-cell epitopes. However, a lack of T-cell epitopes on short peptides, such as those associated with major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restriction, is a major problem for peptide vaccine development. We propose a solution for the design of peptide vaccines that involves induction of broadly reactive T-cell epitopes via agretopes. The strategy involves positioning multi-agretope type peptides on the N-terminal side of a di-lysine linker and B-cell epitopes on the C-terminal side. The addition of the arginine-glysine-aspartate (RGD)-motif to the N terminus of the peptide enhances its immunogenicity, and enables nasal immunization without adjuvants.
For humoral immunization, it may be possible to make effective and safe peptide vaccines for various diseases by selection of proper B-cell epitopes. However, a lack of T-cell epitopes on short peptides, such as those associated with major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-restriction, is a major problem for peptide vaccine development. We propose a solution for the design of peptide vaccines that involves induction of broadly reactive T-cell epitopes via agretopes. The strategy involves positioning multi-agretope type peptides on the N-terminal side of a di-lysine linker and B-cell epitopes on the C-terminal side. The addition of the arginine-glysine-aspartate (RGD)-motif to the N terminus of the peptide enhances its immunogenicity, and enables nasal immunization without adjuvants.

