ABSTRACT
It has long been recognized that antigenic material in an "immunogenic form" is important in initiating an immune response, while antigenic material in a "toleragenic," "suppressive" or "inhibitory" form is somehow capable of reducing an immune response. Factors other than the antigenic material itself have been implicated in immune regulation. Antigenic material, in general, has not been considered a source of negative signal since it has been viewed as being either ineffective or effective in stimulating an immune response. To date the immunon model is based on the authors experimental results derived from studies of the immune response to chemically simple epitopes contained in soluble polymeric molecules of relatively simple chemistry. The immunon model proposes that, for soluble polymeric molecules, there can exist a range of sizes which have sufficient valency of epitopes to bind well to B cell receptors specific for such epitopes.
