Pharmaceutical or veterinary compositions, vaccine systems, methods, and kits for treating or protecting a subject from a condition using peptide-based adjuvants are provided. The peptide adjuvants comprise a peptide having a hydrophobic region, a turning region, and a hydrophilic region. The turning region comprises amino acid residues GSII (SEQ ID NO: 10). The peptide adjuvants can be used to immunopotentiate active agents by improving the immune response to the active agent.