Current nonviral genetic vaccine systems are less effective than viral vaccines, particularly in cancer systems where epitopes can be weakly immunogenic and antigen-presenting cell processing and presentation to T cells is down-regulated. A promising nonviral delivery method for genetic vaccines involves microencapsulation of antigen-encoding DNA, because such particles protect plasmid payloads...

In T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases, self-reactive T cells with known antigen specificity appear to be particularly promising targets for antigen-specific induction of tolerance without compromising desired protective host immune responses. Several lines of evidence suggest that delivery of antigens to antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) in the steady state (i.e., to immature DCs) may r...

Nowadays, Nano-sized drug delivery systems have been studied extensively for theirpotential in cancer therapy. Various drug nanocarriers are being developed including liposomes, micelles, and Virus like nanoparticles (VLNPs). VLNPs offer many advantages for developing smart drug delivery systems due to their precise and repeated structures and relatively large cargo capacities. Truncated ...

We recently described a delivery system that is composed of a chitosan core to which the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was adsorbed and subsequently coated with sodium alginate. In this present work, alginate coated chitosan nanoparticles were evaluated as a subcutaneous adjuvant for HBsAg. HBsAg loaded, alginate coated or uncoated chitosan nanoparticles, associated or not with CpGODN wer...

Pneumonic plague, caused by inhalation of Yersinia pestis, represents a major bioterrorism threat for which no vaccine is available. Based on the knowledge that genetic delivery of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) with adenovirus (Ad) gene transfer vectors results in rapid, high-level antibody expression, we evaluated the hypothesis that Ad-mediated delivery of a neutralizing antibody directed agai...

Biomaterial vaccines offer cargo protection, targeting, and co-delivery of signals to immune organs such as lymph nodes (LNs), tissues that coordinate adaptive immunity. Understanding how individual vaccine components impact immune response has been difficult owing to the systemic nature of delivery. Direct intra-lymph node (i.LN.) injection offers a unique opportunity to dissect how the doses,...

Protein aggregates have been reported to act as a reservoir that can release biologically active, native form of precursor protein. Keeping this fact into consideration, it is tempting to exploit protein aggregate-based antigen delivery system as a functional vaccine to expand desirable immunological response in the host. Herein, we explored the capacity of aggregated Ag85B of Mycobacterium tub...

Antitumor immunity in cancer patients is heavily modulated by cells of the innate immune system. Antigen-presenting cells, including dendritic cells, macrophages, and B cells, initiate immune recognition of tumor antigen by displaying antigen to effector cells. Countering this immune stimulation are immunosuppressive cells which include M2 macrophages, N2 neutrophils, and myeloid-derived suppre...

Delivery of vaccines into the skin provides many advantages over traditional parenteral vaccination and is a promising approach due to the abundance of antigen presenting cells (APC) residing in the skin including Langerhans cells (LC) and dermal dendritic cells (DDC). However, the main obstacle for transcutaneous immunization (TCI) is the effective delivery of the vaccine through the stratum c...