Alright, so the thing that antibodies are “trained” to detect is called an epitope.
On page 23 of the white paper, it says:
VED might arise through vaccine design-induced distortion of viral epitopes, as has been
proposed to occur by formalin treatment of RSV.
a. Our preferred epitope type is synthetic peptides. Such peptides are chemically
well defined and have a high degree of structural integrity.
So distortions of the epitope can cause an autoimmune reaction, and synthetic peptides are good because they’re stable and you know exactly what you are getting. But if you have a bunch of partial peptides mixed in, then it substantially weakens this point.
Re: 3. It does seem to be true that “damage” is required. Substances which provoke an immune response are called adjuvants, and the adjuvants in this vaccine are the Chitosan and the Tripolyphosphate.
Reading the paper more closely, it says that the truncated peptides are fine because the peptides get chopped up by proteases anyway. This does make me feel a bit less worried about this, but it also implies that this would be a potential issue for purified peptides as well.
ETA:
I also did a spot-check to see at which point this would actually become an issue with the actual peptides in the vaccine using https://db.systemsbiology.net/sbeams/cgi/PeptideAtlas/Search
It seems you can generally expect length 6 sequences of peptides in radvac to be unique to the virus, while length 4 sequences of peptides from radvac are typically widespread.
Alright, so the thing that antibodies are “trained” to detect is called an epitope. On page 23 of the white paper, it says:
So distortions of the epitope can cause an autoimmune reaction, and synthetic peptides are good because they’re stable and you know exactly what you are getting. But if you have a bunch of partial peptides mixed in, then it substantially weakens this point.
Re: 3. It does seem to be true that “damage” is required. Substances which provoke an immune response are called adjuvants, and the adjuvants in this vaccine are the Chitosan and the Tripolyphosphate.
Reading the paper more closely, it says that the truncated peptides are fine because the peptides get chopped up by proteases anyway. This does make me feel a bit less worried about this, but it also implies that this would be a potential issue for purified peptides as well.
ETA: I also did a spot-check to see at which point this would actually become an issue with the actual peptides in the vaccine using https://db.systemsbiology.net/sbeams/cgi/PeptideAtlas/Search It seems you can generally expect length 6 sequences of peptides in radvac to be unique to the virus, while length 4 sequences of peptides from radvac are typically widespread.