Abstract
Over the last 30 years, genetically engineered DNA has been tested as novel vaccination strategy against various diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B, several parasites, and cancers. However, the clinical breakthrough of the technique is confined by the low transfection efficacy and immunogenicity of the employed vaccines. Therefore, carrier materials were designed to prevent the rapid degradation and systemic clearance of DNA in the body. In this context, biopolymers are a particularly promising DNA vaccine carrier platform due to their beneficial biochemical and physical characteristics, including biocompatibility, stability, and low toxicity. This article reviews the applications, fabrication, and modification of biopolymers as carrier medium for genetic vaccines.
Highlights
Over the last 30 years, genetically engineered DNA has been tested as Aus dem Inhalt novel vaccination strategy against various diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B, several parasites, and
DNA vaccines that injecting humans with cowpox led to the protection against smallpox.[4]
Improved public health and life expectancy. It has been Antigens from these pathogens are recognised by the immune reported that two to three million lives per year are saved system as being foreign, which results in the induction of an worldwide due to vaccination.[1]
Summary
Directions vaccine carrier platform due to their beneficial biochemical and physical characteristics, including biocompatibility, stability, and low toxicity. DNA vaccines have been approved for veterinary use against West Nile Virus in horses,[10] canine melanoma,[11] infectious haematopoietic necrosis in farm-raised Atlantic salmon,[12] and as gene therapy for growth hormone-releasing hormone in pigs.[13] The first human trial of DNA-based vaccines was conducted in 1998 and targeted human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV).[14] Currently, there are many ongoing human clinical trials that target various types of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases, such as human papilloma virus (HPV), HIV, hepatitis B and coronavirus (Table 1).[5,15] Results of these first clinical trials reported DNA vaccines to be safe and well tolerated, but showed low immunogenicity, which was attributed to insufficient protein expression levels.[5,11] This low efficacy can be overcome by optimisation of the plasmid-encoded antigen to increase antigen expression per cell or by increasing the transfection rate through polymer and lipid formulations, as well as enhancement of the immune response by addition of molecular adjuvants.[9]. She is an MPhil Biotechnology student at the University of Cambridge, where she is doing research on novel DNA vaccine delivery carriers in the group of Dr Ljiljana Fruk. Due to the comparable mechanism of action of DNA vaccines and mRNA vaccines, the design considerations presented in this Review may be useful for mRNA vaccine delivery systems
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