[Auto-vaccines: an immunological alternative to gene silencing]

Auto-vaccination is a procedure that recently attracted the interest of a growing number of investigators as an alternative to gene inactivation for functional studies of cytokines or other mediators. It is based on the observation that autologous cytokines cross-linked to a foreign protein or peptide are recognized by self-reactive B cells that present foreign peptides, and by doing so attract illicit help from helper T cells that recognize the foreign peptide on the self-reactive B cell MHC Class II complex. This leads to the production of antibodies reacting with self-proteins and thus to neutralization of the targeted factor. Here, we summarize the different techniques that were successful in breaking this self-tolerance and provide several examples of the functional consequences of these auto-vaccines. An additional output of auto-vaccination is the production of mouse monoclonal antibodies against mouse factors. Such antibodies have obvious advantages for long-term use in vivo.