Fig. 1.

An illustrative mechanism of antigen presenting cell (APC) activation caused by immunomodulatory peptides through innate immune receptors leading to the induction of adaptive immune cells. The immunomodulatory peptides are ligands of innate immune receptors that evoke cytokine expression through cellular signaling pathways. The cytokines lead to the maturation of naïve cells into mature adaptive immune cells such as various types of T-lymphocytes. Since the immunomodulatory peptides activate the APCs leading to the activation of the adaptive immune cells, they may be used as vaccine adjuvants and be called ‘A-cell epitopes’. The figure was drawn using ScienceSlides, made available at http://www.scienceslides.com/ by VisiScience