The most cited paper published within the last two years is from the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tbingen, Germany (K. Falk, et al., Nature, 351:290, 1991). This paper, which by the end of February 1993 had been referred to in 220 subsequent articles, deals with an advance in the understanding of MHC, the major histocompatibility complex molecules.
MHC binds short peptides that are derived from intracellular proteins. The peptides are then presented to the cell surface for inspection by the immune system. Native proteins produce "self peptides," which are recognized as friendly, while foreign proteins give rise to antigenic peptides and stimulate an immune response.
In the work by Kirsten Falk and associates, the breakthrough was in the characterization of peptides that are bound to MHC molecules. As the authors point out, knowledge of the peptide motifs of individual MHC molecules can "help with synthetic or recombinant vaccine ...
