What is the goal of Vaccination?

Vaccination is a cost-effective means of disease prevention that has already prevented millions from the death and suffering caused by the many diseases afflicting humankind. With increased knowledge of the human immune system, vaccine design can be focused on the specific areas of the immune system most effective against the pathogen in question, but also as a therapeutic tool in cancer.

What are synthetic vaccines?

Synthetic vaccines are vaccines consisting mainly of synthetic peptides, carbohydrates, or antigens. They are usually considered to be safer than vaccines made from bacterial cultures. The synthetic peptide approach to vaccine development arose in response to fast DNA cloning and sequencing technology. This made it possible to rapidly obtain primary sequences and build various peptides.

What are the Advantages Synthetic Vaccines?

• Chemically defined product
• Stable indefinitely at ambient temperature
• No infectious agent present - hence no problems with innocuity
• No large-scale production plant required
• No downstream processing required
• Can be designed to stimulate appropriate immune responses
• Provide the opportunity to use delayed-release mechanisms

What is a conjugated peptide vaccine?

The conjugation of peptides has two common purposes, the first being the induction of humoral immunity. This is the production of antibodies capable of binding to the peptide immunogen. The antibodies are elaborated by plasma cells, which are terminally differentiated B-lymphocytes. However, in order for immunity to be successfully induced in a secondary memory (anamnestic) response, the immunogen must also react with T-lymphocytes. Coupling these molecules to a large carrier protein containing T-cell epitopes allows the induction of a B-cell response to the entire immunogen, including the peptide . New synthetic peptides offer promises as vaccines. The choice of appropriate carrier proteins is very important in designing peptide vaccines, and their selection is limited by factors such as toxicity and large-scale production feasibility for in vivo use. There are other limitations to this approach, including the peptide load that can be coupled and the dose of carrier that can be safely administered .

WHAT IS A MAPS (Multiple Antigenic Peptide System)?

For short peptide sequences (between 5 and 15AA), we recommend using the MAP technique to reinforce immune response. Multiple Antigen Peptide System (MAPS) peptides were originally designed to produce peptide antigen carriers with a defined number of conjugated peptides. The resulting haptens usually contain four or eight identical peptides in a dense structure. The MAP system uses a peptidyl core of three or seven radially-branched lysine residues, on to which the antigen sequences of interest can be built using standard solid-phase chemistry. Peptides are attached through C-terminal to a core matrix of either 4 or 8 branching Lysine, referred to as the MAP core and consisting of highly localized peptide densities. We have designed MAPS peptides containing both B-cell and T-cell epitopes.

• We propose symmetrical or asymmetrical, 4 branch or 8 branch constructions.
• These constructions are generally produced on modified resin, consisting of the same peptide sequence on the same MAP.

Our constructions are especially adapted to antibody production needs, diagnostics and vaccine development. Synprosis conducts all stages of synthetic antigen design (linear peptides, conjugated peptides or MAPS) for various customers and partners, and provides GMP production of vaccine candidates (APIs and drug products).