Adjuvants in immunology are often used to modify or augment the effects of a vaccine by stimulating the immune system to respond to the vaccine more vigorously, and thus providing increased immunity to a particular disease.
Adjuvants accomplish this task by mimicking specific sets of evolutionarily conserved molecules which include liposomes, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), molecular cages for antigen, components of bacterial cell walls, and endocytosed nucleic acids such as double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), and unmethylated CpG dinucleotide-containing DNA.
Because immune systems have evolved to recognize these specific antigenic moieties, the presence of adjuvant in conjunction with the vaccine can greatly increase the innate immune response to the antigen by augmenting the activities of dendritic cells (DCs), lymphocytes and macrophages by mimicking a natural infection.
Furthermore, because adjuvants are attenuated beyond any function of virulence, they pose little or no independent threat to a host organism.
