It is essential that we understand how clinically approved aluminium-based adjuvants are effective in potentiating the immune response in human vaccination [1]. The physico-chemical properties of these materials, primarily crystalline aluminium oxyhydroxide (bohemite) and amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate, have been fully described [2] and there has been progress in understanding their biological reactivity [1] and [2]. The latter would be further advanced if myriad recent publications investigating the action of aluminium adjuvants used clinically relevant adjuvant materials in their experiments. However as a recent example of this concern, Marichal et al. use, in the majority of experiments, Imject Alum while Sigma's Alhydrogel was used in a confirmatory manner in a small number of complementary experiments [3]. Neither of these aluminium adjuvants is used in human vaccination nor is sufficiently physico-chemically similar to clinically approved aluminium adjuvants to be used as a mimic of the biological activity of such adjuvants.
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