The possible use of peptide polymers as vaccines offers the advantage of simply defined chemical composition and efficient large-scale production. The molecular simplicity provides the level of confidence that the vaccine will be safe. We reported earlier a procedure for specifically crosslinking peptides through N-terminal bromoacetyl moieties and cysteine residues. This procedure has been employed to prepare a variety of peptide polymers to test as vaccines. The results indicate that it may be possible to produce a synthetic polypeptide vaccine that will be a useful supplement to current vaccines and that, because of its relative safety, may be continually administered in instances where required. Our findings should lead to a clearer understanding of the immune response to immunogens in cases where only minimal amounts of immunogen are needed for protective response.
