Abstract
Vaccines are considered one of the most important bioproducts in medicine. Since the development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, several types of vaccines for many diseases have been created. However, some vaccines have shown limitations as high cost and low immune responses. In that regard, bacteriophages have been proposed as an attractive alternative for the development of more cost-effective vaccines. Phage-displayed vaccines consists in the expression of antigens on the phage surface. This approach takes advantage of inherent properties of these particles such as their adjuvant capacity, economic production and high stability, among others. To date, three types of phage-based vaccines have been developed: phage-displayed, phage DNA and hybrid phage-DNA vaccines. Typically, phage display technology has been used for the identification of new and protective epitopes, mimotopes and antigens. In this context, phage particles represent a versatile, effective and promising alternative for the development of more effective vaccine delivery systems which should be highly exploited in the future. This review describes current advances in the development of bacteriophage-based vaccines, with special attention to vaccine delivery strategies. Moreover, the immunological aspects of phage-based vaccines, as well as the applications of phage display for vaccine development, are explored. Finally, important challenges and the future of phage-bases vaccines are discussed.
Highlights
The development of vaccines represents one of the greatest advances in medical fields which have saved a huge number of human and animal lives [1]
Important advantages of using filamentous phages for the development of vaccines include that phages are stable under harsh conditions, the phage size is determined by the length of the DNA molecule it harbors and the phage genome capability to be used as cloning vector [10,28,37]
This study reported effects on the production of proinflammatory cytokines, on the secretion of molecules necessary for antigen presentation by dendritic cells and co-stimulation of macrophages and T cells [57]. These findings suggest the high capacity of phage particles to induce immunogenicity and prompts the development of phage-based vaccines for cancer immunotherapy
Summary
The development of vaccines represents one of the greatest advances in medical fields which have saved a huge number of human and animal lives [1]. Bacteriophage-based vaccines are considered to become a potent alternative to overcome the limitations of classical vaccines This approach takes advantage of bacteriophages’ inherent properties to improve the stability and immunogenicity of displayed antigens [10]. The development of phage-based vaccines is possible due to the enhancement of molecular tools that allow the manipulation of phage genomes through the phage display technology and at the same time it is benefited by the improvement of microbiology, physiology, and immunology areas. This recent development of bacteriophages as vaccine delivery systems has opened a novel area for commercial growth [6]. Important challenges and the future of phage-bases vaccines is discussed
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