Improving T cell-induced response to subunit vaccines: opportunities for a proteomic systems approach

Prophylactic vaccines are an effective strategy to prevent development of many infectious diseases. With new and re-emerging infections posing increasing risks to food stocks and the health of the population in general, there is a need to improve the rationale of vaccine development. One key challenge lies in development of an effective T cell-induced response to subunit vaccines at specific sites and in different populations. In this review, we consider how a proteomic systems-based approach can be used to identify putative novel vaccine targets, may be adopted to characterise subunit vaccines and adjuvants fully. Despite the extensive potential for proteomics to aid our understanding of subunit vaccine nature, little work has been reported on identifying MHC 1-binding peptides for subunit vaccines generating T cell responses in the literature to date. In combination with predictive and structural biology approaches to mapping antigen presentation, proteomics offers a powerful and as yet un-tapped addition to the armoury of vaccine discovery to predict T-cell subset responses and improve vaccine design strategies.