Immunogenicity of tetanus toxoid conjugates of anti-idiotypes that mimic Pseudomonas aeruginosa surface polysaccharides.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa continues to be a serious pathogen in humans, and there is no commercially available vaccine. We have previously developed monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibodies that mimic two surface polysaccharide epitopes of pseudomonas--the high-molecular-weight polysaccharide of the O side chain of immunotype 1 lipopolysaccharide and mucoid exopolysaccharide. We now show that conjugation of the anti-idiotypes to the carrier tetanus toxoid is not necessary to induce antipolysaccharide antibodies of equal or greater titer than the native polysaccharide antigen in mice.