Abstract
Despite medical progress, more than a billion people still suffer daily from parasitic infections. Vaccination is recognized as one of the most sustainable options to control parasitic diseases. However, the development of protective and therapeutic vaccines against tropical parasites has proven to be exceptionally challenging for both scientific and economic reasons. For certain parasitic diseases, traditional vaccine platforms are not well-suited, due to the complexity of the parasite life cycles and the parasite’s ability to evade the human immune system. An effective anti-parasite vaccine platform needs to have the ability to develop and test novel candidate antigens fast and at high-throughput; it further needs to allow for multivalent combinations and must evoke a strong and well-defined immune response. Anti-parasitic vaccines need to be safe and economically attractive, especially in the world’s low- and middle-income countries. This review evaluates the potential of in vitro transcribed mRNA vaccines as a new class of preventive and therapeutic vaccine technologies for parasitic infections.
Highlights
Signal 1 involves the activation of the T cell receptor (TCR) by recognition of a peptide that is presented on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of antigen presenting cells (APCs)
The results indicated that vaccination with RREP-NTPase-II mRNA vaccine candidates can enhance resistance again acute and chronic challenges of T. gondii
Similar to other oligonucleotide-based vaccine technologies, mRNA can be made using a standardized production process, allowing for multiple vaccine candidates to be screened within a reasonable time frame
Summary
Over the last few decades, vaccines have eliminated and reduced numerous infectious diseases. Malaria is a leading cause of death in resource-poor nations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, while other parasitic diseases exert their adverse health effects by causing profound disability as measured in DALYs [7]. Still another effect is that the disabling features of these parasitic infections often translate to reduced economic productivity so that they thwart economic achievements and gains [8]. The term “antipoverty vaccines” has been invoked to describe neglected parasitic disease vaccines because of their simultaneous impact on both public health and economic development [18]. Parasitic infections are either not recognized or underestimated for the severe burden they cause
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