Advances in the study of HLA-restricted epitope vaccines

Vaccination is a proven strategy for protection from disease. An ideal vaccine would include antigens that elicit a safe and effective protective immune response. HLA-restricted epitope vaccines, which include T-lymphocyte epitopes restricted by HLA alleles, represent a new and promising immunization approach. In recent years, research in HLA-restricted epitope vaccines for the treatment of tumors and for the prevention of viral, bacterial, and parasite-induced infectious diseases have achieved substantial progress. Approaches for the improvement of the immunogenicity of epitope vaccines include (1) improving the accuracy of the methods used for the prediction of epitopes, (2) making use of additional HLA-restricted CD8(+) T-cell epitopes, (3) the inclusion of specific CD4(+) T-cell epitopes, (4) adding B-cell epitopes to the vaccine construction, (5) finding more effective adjuvants and delivery systems, (6) using immunogenic carrier proteins, and (7) using multiple proteins as epitopes sources. In this manuscript, we review recent research into HLA-restricted epitope vaccines.