Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 14, Issue 10, 2013

Production of long-lived, high affinity humoral immunity is an essential characteristic of successful vaccination and requires cognate interactions between T and B cells in germinal centers. Within germinal centers, specialized T follicular helper cells assist B cells and regulate the antibody response by mediating the differentiation of B cells into memory or plasma cells after exposure to T cell-dependent antigens. It is now a Read More

The risk of plague as a bioweapon has prompted increasing research efforts to develop plague vaccines due to its extreme virulence and the ease of its transmission. Subunit vaccines that contain F1 and LcrV antigens of Y. pestis have been tested for safety and immunogenicity, but doubts have been raised about whether subunit vaccines that engender antibody responses will protect against pneumonic plague, which requi Read More

Brucella spp. are facultative intracellular bacteria that cause brucellosis, which is a globally occurring zoonotic disease that is characterized by abortion in domestic animals and undulant fever, arthritis, endocarditis, and meningitis in humans. There are currently no licensed vaccines against brucellosis for human use, and only a few licensed live Brucella vaccines are available for use in animals. However, the available animal Read More

Acinetobacter baumannii has become an important cause of human infections, most notably in the hospital setting. In addition, the global dissemination of multidrug resistant strains has complicated effective antibiotic therapy of infections produced by this pathogen, necessitating the development of novel treatment and prevention strategies. Active and passive immunization approaches have begun to be explored in Read More

Shigella was first discovered in 1897 and is a major causative agent of dysenteric diarrhea. The number of affected patients has decreased globally because of improved sanitary conditions; however, Shigella still causes serious problems in many subjects, including young children and the elderly, especially in developing countries. Although antibiotics may be effective, a vaccine would be the most powerful solution to combat shigel Read More

Clostridium perfringens alpha-toxin is thought to be an important agent in gas gangrene, which is a lifethreatening infection with fever, pain, edema, myonecrosis, and gas production. The toxin (370 residues) is composed of an N-terminal domain (1-250 residues, N-domain) in which the catalytic site is found and a C-terminal domain (251-370 residues, C-domain) responsible for binding to membranes. During the past dec Read More

Nucleic acid drugs are promising new therapeutics for the treatment of various diseases including genetic diseases, viral diseases, and cancer. However, their poor intracellular bioavailability and rapid degradation hinder their development as drugs. Therefore, the main challenge is to develop an efficient delivery system. Calcium phosphate has been widely used to transfect cultured cells for 40 years, due to its safety, s Read More

Advanced drug delivery formulations are presently recognized as promising tools for overcoming the adverse physicochemical properties of conventional drug molecules, such as poor water solubility, which often leads to poor drug bioavailability. Oral drug delivery is considered as the easiest and most convenient route of drug administration. However, via the current trends utilizing combinatorial chemistry and high thr Read More