Although vaccines have been the primary defense against widespread infectious disease for decades, there is a critical need for improvement to combat complex and variable diseases. More control and specificity over the immune response can be achieved by using only subunit components in vaccines. However, these often lack sufficient immunogenicity to fully protect, and conjugation or carrier materials are required. A variety of protein and peptide biomaterials have improved effectiveness and delivery of subunit vaccines for infectious, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. They are biodegradable and have control over both material structure and immune function. Many of these materials are built from naturally occurring self-assembling proteins, which have been engineered for incorporation of vaccine components. In contrast, others are de novo designs of structures with immune function. In this review, protein biomaterial design, engineering, and immune functionality as vaccines or immunotherapies are discussed.

中文翻译：

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工程亚单位疫苗和免疫治疗应用的蛋白质和肽生物材料。

尽管疫苗几十年来一直是抵抗广泛传染病的主要防御手段，但仍迫切需要改进以抵抗复杂和多变的疾病。通过仅使用疫苗中的亚基成分，可以实现对免疫反应的更多控制和特异性。然而，这些通常缺乏足够的免疫原性以完全保护，并且需要缀合或载体材料。多种蛋白质和肽生物材料改善了针对传染性，癌症和自身免疫性疾病的有效性和亚单位疫苗的递送。它们是可生物降解的，并且可以控制物质结构和免疫功能。这些材料中有许多是由天然存在的自组装蛋白构建而成的，这些蛋白经过工程设计可掺入疫苗成分。相反，其他是具有免疫功能的结构的从头设计。在这篇综述中，讨论了蛋白质生物材料的设计，工程以及作为疫苗或免疫疗法的免疫功能。