ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that anti-idiotype (anti-Id) vaccines have a place in the armamentarium of bacterial vaccines. The ability to purify and completely characterize an anti-Id, particularly a monoclonal antibody, gives this type of vaccine an advantage over some bacterial vaccines that consist of heterogeneous material or even whole cells. Anti-Id may be useful in stimulating anti- polysaccharide (PS) responses in individuals with immunodeficiencies that render them unresponsive to PS antigens. Anti-Id vaccines, in practice, may not be very different from antigen vaccines except that they enter the regulatory pathway of the immune system at a different place. During the course of an immune response, following a single immunization with a bacterial PS, oscillating waves of antibody and anti-Id have been observed. A high proportion of invasive bacterial infections is caused by encapsulated organisms such as Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae, and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
