Peptide epitopes: identification and structural modifications of synthetic antigens

The application of biologicals like monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs), their fragments, fusion proteins, synthetic epitope peptides, conjugates, nanostructures in fundamental biomedicinal research as well as in early diagnosis and/or efficient and specific targeted therapy including vaccination in various diseases (e.g. cancer, infectious and autoimmune diseases) is on the rise. In this chapter an outline is provided to summarise recent advances, together with the brief references to early attempts, on strategies and approaches developed for identification of protein epitopes, for the manipulation of their structure to achieve optimal immune recognition. By the help of selected examples from the last few years we also survey the application of these discoveries in understanding the details of interactions between proteins, peptides, in the development of epitope based immunodiagnostics or therapeutics.