klh conjugated synthetic peptide

klh conjugated synthetic peptide

A standard peptide of 15-20 amino acids in length is too small to elicit an immune response on its own. As a result, it is necessary to conjugate the peptide to a larger carrier protein. More importantly, there are three common purposes for conjugation of peptides. The most common is induction of humoral immunity. The majority of available pharmaceutical agents can not efficiently reach the brain parenchyma, which is one of the bottlenecks in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. One of the strategies developed to overcome this limitation is to conjugate the drug molecule to an antibody directly against one of the carrier proteins expressed on the luminal surface of brain capillary endothelial cells. Many peptides contain B-cell epitopes, but not T-cell epitopes. (Such molecules are called haptens.) Coupling these molecules to a large carrier protein containing T-cell epitopes allows the induction of a B-cell response to the entire immunogen, including the peptide. New synthetic peptides thus offer promise as vaccines.