Peptides for immunological purposes: design, strategies and applications

The development of new vaccines remains an attractive goal for disease
prevention and therapy, in combination or alternative to drug-based
treatment. In parallel, a growing awareness of the importance of early
diagnosis in successful disease management is driving the demand for new
reliable diagnostic tools. As a consequence, over the last decades an
impressive amount of work has been directed toward the search for new
solutions to address vaccine design and biomarker discovery. In this
context, peptides have generated considerable interest thanks to their
general accessibility and ease of manipulation. The aim of this review
is to provide the reader a general picture of the traditional
peptide-based strategies adopted in immunology and to report on recent
advances made in this field, highlighting advantages and limitations of
classic versus innovative approaches. Case studies are described to
provide illustrative examples, and cross references to more
topic-focused and exhaustive reviews are proposed throughout the text.