Adjuvants - Page 2

[zylph]

Originally Posted by Th1Th2

Adjuvants do not play a role for the re-shifting of immune response from Th2 to Th1. They cannot mimic what nature has intended for. In fact, vaccination is so designed for Th2 activation regardless of the subject---the cause of ABNORMAL immune response. Therefore, the only way to maintain the homeostatic balance is to STOP vaccinating.

This is not entirely true. All adjuvants used in human vaccines are Th2 inducers. However, Toll-like receptor-based adjuvants (like complete Freund's) tend to be Th1 inducers.

vaccines are designed to trigger humoral immunity thereby causing prolonged ABNORMAL immunity

Vaccines are designed to induce Th2 responses because these tend to be safer (less risk of autoinflammatory problems and cytokine storms). And because neutralizing antibody responses have long been considered the 'gold standard' of vaccine-induced immunity. People have begun to seriously re-evaluate this in the last ten years though.

Antibodies neutralize microorganisms so that they are unable to adhere to cells causing infection. Once they are neutralized, they are presented for destruction by other killer cells i.e. macrophages. CTLs etc.

Antibodies induce the complement cascade which leads to opsonization and mast cell degranulation/eosinophil activation (like you said) - very good things for the response to extracellular pathogens like nematodes (worms). However, they can directly kill pathogens by forming membrane attack complexes that punch holes in the pathogens' membrane, leading to lysis (this obviously only affects bacteria and other single-celled parasites).

The Th2 response induced by alum-based adjuvants is not ideal. It's just a lot safer than any other alternative adjuvants we've come up with so far.

Also, the NALP3 stuff is pretty cool. I've given two talks on it and it looks like it's just particles that activate the inflammasome. The authors of this (http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/v9/...l/ni.1631.html) show that silica crystals do the same thing, probably by screwing with the lysosomal compartment.