immunogenicity
Sign in to saveImmunogenicity is the ability of a foreign substance, such as an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. It may be wanted or unwanted:
~9 min read
Article
13 sectionsContents
- Antigenic immunogenic potency
- Antigen characteristics
- T cell epitopes
- Monoclonal antibodies
- Evaluation methods
- In silico screening
- Prediction methods
- Sequence-based methods
- Structure-based methods
- Multimodal methods
- See also
- References
- Further reading
Immunogenicity is the ability of a foreign substance, such as an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. It may be wanted or unwanted: Wanted immunogenicity typically relates to vaccines, where the injection of an antigen (the vaccine) provokes an immune response against the pathogen, protecting the organism from future exposure. Immunogenicity is a central aspect of vaccine development. Unwanted immunogenicity is an immune response by an organism against a therapeutic antigen. This reaction leads to production of anti-drug-antibodies (ADAs), inactivating the therapeutic effects of the treatment and potentially inducing adverse effects.
A challenge in biotherapy is predicting the immunogenic potential of novel protein therapeutics. For example, immunogenicity data from high-income countries are not always transferable to low-income and middle-income countries. Another challenge is considering how the immunogenicity of vaccines changes with age. Therefore, as stated by the World Health Organization, immunogenicity should be investigated in a target population since animal testing and in vitro models cannot precisely predict immune response in humans.