Current Perspectives in Vaccine Development
Sandra Pepperl-Klindworth and Bodo Plachter
from: Cytomegaloviruses: Molecular Biology and Immunology (Edited by: Matthias J. Reddehase). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2006)
Abstract
Prenatal transmission of HCMV is a frequent cause of mental retardation and hearing loss in children. Furthermore, infection with this virus is a severe threat to immunocompromised transplant recipients and AIDS patients. Consequently, development of a vaccine to prevent CMV disease has been identified as a first rank medical priority. Goals and target populations for such a vaccine have been named. With the availability of novel technologies, antigens to be targeted by vaccine-induced immune responses have been recently defined in greater detail. These studies indicated that only a subset of the more than 150 viral proteins may be sufficient to induce protective immunity. Using this information, strategies for the development of live virus vaccines as well as subunit vaccines can be refined read more ...
