Therapeutic Vaccines for Hypertension: a New Option for Clinical Practice.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Vaccines are commonly used as preventive methods, primarily against infectious diseases. The goal of our study is to develop the therapeutic vaccine for hypertension.

RECENT FINDINGS: We and others recently reported that an angiotensin II (AngII) vaccine for hypertension successfully attenuated elevated blood pressures in an animal model without any immunogenic side effects. In this system, an immunogenic molecule (i.e., KLH) with adjuvants provides an antigen that supports the activation of helper T cells. In addition, pretreatment with the AngII vaccine exerts neuroprotective effects in a cerebral ischemia model and cardioprotective effects in a myocardial infarction model. In the early phase of clinical trial, the administration of an AngII vaccine (AngQb-Cyt006) successfully decreased blood pressure in hypertensive patients with the increase of anti-AngII antibody titer. Increasing the effectiveness of drug adherence interventions in the clinical setting may have a large impact on the health of the population, which can be improved by using successful therapeutic vaccines. In this review, we describe the concept of therapeutic vaccines for hypertension and future directions for therapeutic vaccines.