Mimotopes: realization of an unlikely concept

Theoretically it seems highly unlikely that relatively small peptides could mimic functionally discontinuous epitopes of antigens, Nevertheless variou s recent reports show this to be the case. Peptide mimics of protein-, poly saccharide- and DNA-epitopes have been shown to be able to replace the nati ve epitope, Moreover, some of them are able to induce, when used in a vacci ne, antibodies with the same activity as that of the antibody used as a tem plate. These mimics, called mimotopes, can be used in vaccines and diagnost ics and can be developed more or less systematically using solely antibodie s and random, semi-random and dedicated peptide arrays or libraries. Furthe rmore, the mimotope concept which seems to have proven itself for antibody and antigen interaction can be applied equally well to many receptor ligand interactions and thus may form a new generic approach to the development o f drugs. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.