Heat Shock Protein as an Adjuvant in Veterinary Vaccines

The conventional vaccines offer effective approaches to control several infectious diseases till date but are not always safe. In search for relatively safer vaccines, the developed new generation vaccines possess weak immunogenicity. Adjuvants are used to potentiate the immune responses induced by vaccine antigens and to achieve a desirable type of response. Heat shock proteins (HSP) are explored as adjuvants as well as therapeutic targets against tumors. HSP are ubiquitous group of proteins conserved in nature and induced to over express during various stressful conditions including heat. HSP are the single most abundant group of proteins inside the cell and during non-apoptotic cell death, they act as danger associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and recognized by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) present on the surface or inside the host cells resulting in stimulation of cells involved in immunity. The molecular mechanisms involved in the adjuvant activity of HSP are not fully understood. In this chapter, we will focus on some of the established functions of HSP and study its role as an adjuvant in veterinary vaccines.