Therapeutic vaccines against IgE-mediated allergies

Abstract

Therapeutic vaccines targeting various self-molecules is an emerging field of vaccine development that is studied extensively in areas such as birth control, cancer, allergy and autoimmunity. Promising results have come from a number of animal studies and several vaccines are in advanced clinical trials. However, no vaccine is currently on the market. This review will focus on the progress in the development of vaccines against IgE-mediated allergies. Targets under investigation are the IgE molecule itself and several Th2 cytokines, that is, IL-4, -5, -13, -33, -18 and thymic stromal lymphopoietin. This review will also discuss new methods to enhance the immunogenicity of the vaccines and how this can contribute to more rapid progress in the field.

Keywords::

• atopic allergies
• cytokine
• dermatitis
• IgE
• therapeutic vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Lars Hellman has a small number of shares and a royalty agreement with Resistentia Pharmaceuticals AB. Patent applications on the vaccination against IL-18, IL-33 and TSLP have been submitted by a small biotechology company owned by Lars Hellman, Theravac Pharmaceuticals AB. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript. Lars Hellman would like to thank Mitch Dushay, Maike Gallwitz and Ann-Karin Olsson for critically reading the manuscript and for giving very valuable comments.