Chapter 13 - Systems vaccinology for the design of rational vaccines against protozoan parasites

Abstract

Vaccine development against protozoan parasites of human and veterinary importance has been predominantly addressed by conventional methodologies. Whereas the first human recombinant vaccine against malaria has been approved, most other zoonotic parasitic diseases lacks of appropriate immunoprophylaxis. Therefore, novel strategies for antigen discovery and vaccine development are required. Advances in reverse vaccinology and genetic manipulation have contributed to the discovery of new potential targets that, together with improvements in sequencing technologies, proteomics, bioinformatics, and statistics, have opened the “omics” era into protozoan parasites. The integration of all of these advances has led to the development of systems biology, which applied to vaccinology can significantly contribute to the rational design of new vaccines. The present chapter does a comprehensive review of the advances and challenges in vaccine development, and the host-immune responses as well as the potential of systems vaccinology approaches applied to protozoan parasites of economic and zoonotic importance.