Methods for improving immunological response in vaccinated animals

A method for providing a vaccine capable of stimulating an improved immunological response to a target antigen in an animal, the method comprising

• selecting a target antigen exhibiting low % predicted linear B-cell epitopes of <10% predicted linear B-cell epitopes;
• providing a polypeptide conjugate comprising the target antigen conjugated to a carrier polypeptide by means of a linker polypeptide exhibiting high % predicted linear B-cell epitopes of >50% predicted linear B-cell epitopes;
• and
• administering to the animal an immunogenic amount of a vaccine comprising the polypeptide conjugate comprising (a) the carrier polypeptide comprising an inactivated chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) enzyme;
• (b) the linker polypeptide, and (c) the target antigen, wherein the carrier polypeptide does not stimulate a substantial T-cell response, and
• wherein the improved immunological response in the animal comprises a statistically significant faster immunological response or specific effect within four days after the first administration of the vaccine compared to a control animal immunized with target antigen and/or carrier without the linker polypeptide,
• wherein the % predicted linear B-cell epitopes for the target antigen is determined by
• (1) generating a BepiPred 1.0 predicted Linear B-cell epitope score for each amino acid in the amino acid sequence of the target antigen;
• (2) counting the amino acids for which the BepiPred 1.0 predicted Linear B-cell epitope score is above a threshold value of 0.2;
• (3) dividing the number of amino acids above the threshold value by the number of amino acids in the target antigen to get a fraction;
• and
• (4) multiplying the fraction by 100 to obtain the % predicted linear B-cell epitopes for the target antigen.