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Using Protozoan Surface Proteins for Effective Oral Vaccination

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2019.07.004Get rights and content

The Global Vaccine Action Plan of the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for nonsyringe delivery mechanisms, thermostable vaccines, and new bioprocessing technologies as priority research areas. Here we discuss the use of protozoan surface proteins to develop a safe, stable, and efficient versatile oral vaccine platform.

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Vaccines Work

Overwhelming evidence demonstrates the benefits of immunization as one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions achieved to date. Currently, licensed vaccines control 25 vaccine-preventable infections that save an estimated 2.5 million lives each year [1]. Most vaccines are based on attenuated or chemically inactivated microorganisms, especially due to the potent and lasting immune responses they produce. However, they involve the risk of a defective inactivation or

Why Oral Immunization?

Almost all microorganisms enter and infect the host through mucous membranes. Therefore, local rather than systemic immunity is more effective in protecting against naturally transmitted pathogens. Mucosal vaccines delivered by oral, nasal, intravaginal, rectal, or sublingual routes target the common mucosal immune system (CMIS) (Box 1) and achieve a more complete protective immune response by conferring local as well as systemic immunity. Oral immunization is the most widely used form of

Overcoming Drawbacks

Although oral immunization certainly has several benefits, currently the main immunization routes are subcutaneous and intramuscular. There are few licensed oral vaccines (Table 1) consisting of attenuated or killed microorganisms that can survive intestinal degradation. The development of new oral vaccines requires critical parameters, including excellent antigen delivery and presentation in vivo. However, the harsh gastric pH and enzymes in the GIT degrade the antigens, resulting in a low

Mix and Match

The use of retrovirus-derived VLPs, in which heterologous proteins or peptides can be included at the surface, offers a very customizable and efficient system [7]. Due to its versatility, we can potentially apply this novel platform to design new vaccines against different microorganisms with relative ease. An attractive strategy would be to focus on those microorganisms associated with a high rate of antibiotic resistance, which represent a major threat to public health and the economy. As

Beyond Infection

In addition, when studying the properties of our novel vaccine platform, which displays influenza HA, we discovered that it is effective not only for the prevention of infection with influenza virus but also as an antitumor prophylactic, and even therapeutic, vaccine against tumor cells expressing HA. Hopefully, personalized antitumor vaccines could be generated using this technology along with the identification of potential tumor antigen targets for each particular tumor. Furthermore, the

Acknowledgments

We thank Pablo R. Gargantini for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (FONCYT: PICT-13469, PICT-2703, PICT-E 0234, and PICT-2116), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET D4408), Universidad Católica de Córdoba (UCC 80020150200144CC) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva (MinCyT Res. 204/11) of Argentina, and a Georg Forster Award of the Alexander von

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    Citation Excerpt :

    All VSPs and most CRMPs were predicted to bind metals and to form intra- and inter-disulfide bonds (Table S5). It is likely that these characteristics favor the formation of the dense coat observed on the trophozoite [40], which is capable of resisting the action of proteases present in the upper small intestine [41]. Conversely, most SCRPs seem not to bind metals but can form disulfide bonds.

4

These authors contributed equally to this article.

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