Chapter 16 - Specific Host Defense Mechanisms: An Introduction to Immunology (VACCINES)

Question 1

Attenuated vaccines

Answer 1

Made from weak pathogens (attenuation - process of weakening pathogens). Most live vaccines are avirulent mutant strains derived from pathogenic organisms.
Examples (virus): adenovirus, chicken pox, measles, mumps, German measles, polio, rotavirus, smallpox, yellow fever
Examples (bacteria): BCG, cholera, tularemia, typhoid fever

Question 2

Inactivated vaccines

Answer 2

Made from pathogens that have been killed by heat or chemicals. Less effective than attenuated vaccines.
Examples (virus): Hep A, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, other encephalitis vaccines, polio, rabies
Examples (bacteria): anthrax, cholera, pertussis, plague, typhoid fever, Q fever

Question 3

Subunit vaccines

Answer 3

Uses antigenic (antibody-stimulating) portions of a pathogen rather than the whole pathogen. 
Examples: Anthrax, Hep B, Lyme disease, whooping cough

Question 4

Conjugate vaccines

Answer 4

Made by conjugating bacterial capsular antigens to molecules that stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies against the less antigenic capsular antigens.
Examples: Hib, meningococcal meningitis, pneumococcal pneumonia

Question 5

Toxoid vaccines

Answer 5

Made from an exotoxin that has been inactivated by heat or chemicals.
Examples: Diphtheria, tetanus. Commercial antisera containing antitoxins are used to treat diseases such as tetanus and botulism. Such antisera are also used in certain types of laboratory tests, known as IDPs

Question 6

DNA vaccines

Answer 6

Currently experimental. A particular gene from a pathogen is inserted into plasmids, and the plasmids are then infected into skin or muscle tissue. Inside host cells, the genes direct the synthesis of an antigen. The body then produces antibodies against these proteins.
Examples: Lab animals have been successfully protected using this technique, and reports of the induction of cellular immune responses in humans to a malarial parasite antigen, using DNA vaccines, have been published.

Question 7

Autogenous vaccines

Answer 7

Has been prepared from bacteria isolated from a localized infection, such as a staphylococcal boil. The pathogens are killed and then injected into the same person to induce production of more antibodies
Examples: N/A