Mimotopes of Viral Antigens and Biologically Important Molecules as Candidate Vaccines and Potential Immunotherapeutics

Antigen recognition by antibodies or ligand-receptor interactions involve small areas of the molecule named epitopes that are normally conformational in nature. The availability of combinatorial peptide libraries has provided a powerful tool for selecting novel sequences which mimic conformational epitopes (mimotopes) either structurally and / or immunologically. These mimotopes can be particularly useful in a number of situations, including: the development of vaccines against tumors, infectious diseases or allergic conditions the design of molecules which can act as agonists or antagonists of various biologically-important molecules and for the development of diagnostic assays. This article reviews the authors' work on the application of combinatorial peptide libraries to identify mimotopes of protective B-cell epitopes from various pathogens, and the search for molecules able to block the biological activities of TNF-α, a cytokine which plays a key role in inflammation.