Mimotopes for the investigation and therapy of allergic disease

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/110238

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

10% of children now use regular asthma medication. The current treatments dampen allergic inflammation but 25% of asthmatic children, all under high medication, need multiple visits to the doctor, emergency treatment or hospitalisation,. Immunotherapy has, since 1911, used repeated injections of allergens. The end result has often been successful and lasting but the response has been unpredictable and requires years of multi-injection treatment. The challenge is to develop effective, applicable immunotherapy which, like vaccines use few injections. Mimotopes provide a new opportunity. Studying the parts of the allergens recognized by the immune system (epitopes) can reveal important phenomena undetectable with whole allergens; and single epitopes may be a powerful avenue to effective immunotherapy. The therapy can be targeted to a selected arm of the immune system for maximal effect and the immediate side effects induced by cross linking antibodies with two epitopes can be avoided. Allergens interact with two types of lymphocyte, the T and B cells. T-cell epitopes can be easily studied because they comprise short regions of proteins which can be synthesized. B-cell (and antibody) epitopes are shapes formed by the interaction of several parts of a protein which cannot be represented by a simple sequence. The mimotope technology uses random peptides to obtain a shape which mimics the B-cell epitope. Here mimotopes will be produced and used to study the common specificities recognized in allergic responses to house dust mite allergens to develop new types of therapy. Importantly recent information shows that B-cell epitopes can be used to modify both T and B-cell function.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2000

End Date: 01-01-2002

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $203,296.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Anaesthesiology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

T-cells | allergen | allergy prevention | allergy treatment | antibody | asthma prevention | asthma treatment | epitopes | general immunotherapy | new immunotherapy strategy

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