Question

what are anti-idiotype vaccines and how are they different from others? are they advantageous over others?

Answer 1

They're used mainly for high risk cancer therapies. You purify antibodies from a cancer patient that recognize the tumor antigen (using some sort of pull down assay or purification), This is the "idiotype". you then inject these into mice who raise antibodies to the antibodies you injected. You then inject these into another mouse who makes antibodies against the ones you injected, thus making antibodies against the antibodies that recognized the idiotype, thus anti-idiotype. These antibodies will recognize the idiotype, a tumor antigen, and bind to it. You essentially use the mice as an amplification of the iditiotypes