Epitope content plays a critical role in determining T cell and antibody responses to vaccines, biomaterials, and protein therapeutics, but its effects are nonlinear and difficult to isolate. Here, molecular self-assembly was used to build a vaccine with precise control over epitope content, in order to finely tune the magnitude and phenotype of T helper and antibody responses. Self-adjuvanting peptide nanofibers were formed by co-assembling a high-affinity universal CD4+ T cell epitope (PADRE) and a B cell epitope from Staphylococcus aureus at specifiable concentrations. Increasing the PADRE concentration from μM to mM elicited bell-shaped dose-responses that were unique to different T cell populations. Notably, the epitope ratios that maximized T follicular helper and antibody responses differed by an order of magnitude from those that maximized Th1 or Th2 responses. Thus, modular materials assembly provides a means of controlling epitope content and efficiently skewing the adaptive immune response in the absence of exogenous adjuvant; this approach may contribute to the development of improved vaccines and immunotherapies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.