Immunomodulation by microbial ribosomes

Over the past twenty years, many authors have reported evidence of the immunoprotective capacity of ribosomes isolated from bacteria, fungi and parasites. The general concept of ribosomal vaccines is presented and examples of two such vaccines are described with data on the specific protection that they induce in mice against experimental infections with Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, S. pyogenes and Haemophilus influenzae for the first one, and against Candida albicans type A and type B for the second one. Because of their high immunogenicity and their innocuity these vaccines represent a decisive improvement over classical microbial vaccines.