Development of an antipathology vaccine for schistosomiasis.

The data presented here clearly demonstrate that IL-12 can act as an adjuvant, suppressing both granuloma formation and fibrosis induced after natural schistosome infection. Recently, we showed that IL-12 can increase protective immunity provided by an attenuated larval schistosome vaccine as well. In both cases the vaccines appear to suppress in large part the parasite-induced Th2 responses. Thus, the use of cytokines as adjuvants offers a rational approach for immunomodulation when the effector mechanism of a particular vaccine is known. Clearly, IL-12 has enormous potential for modulating the outcome of immunization and may have broad application in preventing a variety of different infectious diseases.