The rationale of a peptide-conjugate vaccine against measles.

The live-attenuated measles vaccine is poorly immunogenic in infants because of immune suppressive maternal antibodies and immaturity of the infant's immune system. Selected peptides corresponding to sequential, subdominant B cell epitopes of measles virus (MV) glycoproteins have been shown to induce neutralizing and protective antibodies even in the presence of whole virus antibodies. Similar to polysaccharide-conjugate vaccines, which are highly effective in infants a peptide-conjugate vaccine against measles is proposed. Such a vaccine induces carrier-specific T cells, avoiding measles-specific Th2 cells associated with the risk of atypical measles. This article discusses the rationale of such a strategy and its future potential.