Figure 4: Double chimeric peptide pulsed DC vaccination induced solid protection against disseminated candidiasis in mice. Fba peptide was conjugated to the N terminus of Met6 peptide through double lysine linker (-KK-) to form Fba-Met6 double chimeric peptide vaccine. Mice immunized with Fba-DC and Met6-DC were used as positive controls to compare the efficacy between peptide vaccine and Fba-Met6 chimeric peptide vaccine. (A) After animals were challenged, similar protection patterns were observed in all the immunized mice. Impressively, Fba-Met6 chimeric vaccine induced 100% complete protection up to 60 days when the experiment was terminated. Our data indicate Fba-Met6 double chimeric peptide vaccine worked superior as compared to other individual peptide or peptide mixture. (B) In addition to prolonged survival times, each immunized group had reduced or non-detectable CFUs in their kidneys as compared to nonimmune mice. Only one mouse in Fba-Met6 conjugate group had detectable low CFU in her kidneys. We also tested all the related peptide vaccines in C57BL/6 mice, which are more prone to Th1 responses, and obtained the similar results (data not shown).