Forging a potent vaccine adjuvant: CpG ODN/cationic peptide nanorings

Type I interferon inducers may potentially be engineered to function as antiviral and anticancer agents, or alternatively, vaccine adjuvants, all of which may have clinical applications. We recently described a simple strategy to convert a Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist devoid of interferon a (IFNa) stimulating activity into a robust Type I interferon inducer with potent vaccine adjuvant activity. Single stranded synthetic oligodeoxy-nucleotides containing unmethylated cytosine-phosphate-guanine dinucleotide motifs (CpG ODN) mimic the immune stimulatory effect of bacterial DNA and constitute a family of immunotherapeutics that stimulate the cells of the innate immune system expressing the endosomal pattern recognition receptor Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9).1 CpG ODNs are clas-sified into 4 distinct subtypes on the basi