Search for Vaccines and Therapeutic Nucleic Acids against Cancer

Abstract The article briefly discusses the features of the immune system during carcinogenesis and the causes of its loss of cancer control. A bioinformatic approach is proposed to search for nonapeptides (immune epitopes) recognized by the main histocompatibility complex type I in the primary structure of cancer-associated proteins. It fundamentally differs from other immunoinformative tools for determining immune epitopes in that the differentiation of peptides is based on their primary structure, which cannot be taken into account when using methods based on the use of physico-chemical characteristics of amino acids. Computer modeling of protein processing in immunoproteosomes can be a useful step in vaccine design, allowing us to anticipate the likelihood of the immune epitope being preserved for presentation to T cells. The problems in the search for vaccines are analyzed and the possibility of creating a universal vaccine against different types of cancer based on common antigens is critically evaluated, since it is impossible to present a variety of mosaics of mutational changes in each patient in one vaccine and synthesize, for example, mRNA as the most acceptable form of vaccine for the design of a universal vaccine without violating the limitations in its syntax. The prospects and problems of using therapeutic nucleic acids (small interfering RNAs, microRNAs, antisense oligonucleotides, mRNAs, and aptomers of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system) against cancer, which expand the possibilities of chemotherapy and vaccinology, are evaluated.