Novel Adjuvant Systems

Vaccination remains the single most valuable tool in the prevention of infectious disease. Nevertheless, there exists a need to improve the performance of existing vaccines such that fewer boosts are needed or to develop novel vaccines. For the development of effective vaccines for humans, a great need exists for safe and effective adjuvants. A number of novel adjuvants have been reported in recent years including: i) bacterial toxins such as cholera toxin, CT, and the Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin, LT ii) less toxic derivatives of CT and LT iii) endogenous human immuno- modulators, such as IL-2, IL-12, GM-CSF iv) hormones v) lipopeptides vi) saponins, such as QS-21 vii) synthetic oligonucleotides containing CpG motifs (CpG ODN) viii) lipid A derivatives, such as monophosphoryl lipid A, MPL and ix) muramyl dipeptide (MDP) derivatives. Herein, we will review recent findings using these novel adjuvant systems.