Immunopeptidoma of the major histocompatibility system

The book provides an extensive account of the recently developing immunopeptidomics and the developments it brings to immunotherapy, such as the synthesis of peptides aimed at deactivating pathologically active T-lymphocytes, while the laboratory methods for the study of MHC and the analysis of immunopeptides are extensively presented. Very useful is the report of diseases related to the MHC genome, namely Ankylosing Spondylitis, Addison’s Disease, Celiac Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease, Graves’ Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Sjoegren’s Syndrome and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. With regard to laboratory methods, a useful reference in terms of clinical practice is the soluble MHC-immunopeptidome, i.e. the set of immunopeptides circulating freely in plasma, which can be used as a biological indicator of blood and, by simply taking a blood sample, to evaluate any quantitative or qualitative change in plasma and to correlate it with pathological conditions such as allergies, viral infections, infections, inflammations, autoimmune diseases or neoplasms. The contribution of MHC-immunopeptide research to the preparation of safer and lower cost vaccines from immunopeptides is also mentioned. It appears that the most promising application of immunopeptidomics is in cancer immunotherapy with the preparation of specific vaccines from MHC immunopeptides-tumour-associated antigens that promote the activation of cancer cell-specific T-lymphocytes.