IMR Press / FBL / Volume 13 / Issue 18 / DOI: 10.2741/3199

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Anti-beta-glucan-like immunoprotective candidacidal antiidiotypic antibodies
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1 Sezione di Microbiologia, Dipartimento di Patologia e Medicina di Laboratorio, Università degli Studi di Parma, Viale Gramsci, 14, 43100 Parma, Italy

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

 

Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2008, 13(18), 6920–6937; https://doi.org/10.2741/3199
Published: 1 May 2008
Abstract

Mycoses, candidiasis in particular, are relatively common opportunistic infections still characterized by an unacceptable high mortality rate. Furthermore, they are often complicated by resistance or refractoriness to the existing antimicrobial agents. In recent years new effective therapeutic and large-scale preventative strategies have been proposed by exploiting the identification of fungal beta-glucans as target of antifungal agents such as echinocandins, yeast killer toxins and protective antibodies. Anti-beta-glucan antibodies are detectable in animal and human sera. When elicited by glucan-based vaccines they can exert a fungicidal protective activity. Beta-glucan cell wall killer toxin receptors can elicit fungicidal protective antibodies following natural and experimental infections. When used as an immunogen a killer toxin-neutralizing monoclonal antibody (beta-glucan-like) is able to elicit a significant anticandidal protection mediated by anti-idiotypic anti-beta-glucan-like candidacidal antibodies. Polyclonal, monoclonal and recombinant anti-beta-glucan-like antibodies and peptide mimotopes are able to exert an in vitro and/or in vivo microbicidal activity against eukaryotic and prokaryotic killer toxin receptor-bearing pathogenic microorganisms. Implications and perspectives for transphyletic anti-infectious control strategies, as immunoprevention and immunotherapy, are discussed.

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