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Vaccines
Special Issues
New Approaches to Vaccine Development and Delivery
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New Approaches to Vaccine Development and Delivery

A special issue of Vaccines (ISSN 2076-393X). This special issue belongs to the section "Vaccination Optimization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2025 | Viewed by 2055

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Antonio Carlos de Freitas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Molecular Studies and Experimental Therapy, Department of Genetics, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
Interests: nucleic acid vaccine; yeast-based vaccines; application of immunoinformatics in novel vaccine design; development and evaluation of HPV therapeutic; vaccine Zika; viral pathogenesis; Vaccine delivery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity for innovation in the development, evaluation, and speed of vaccine development and evaluation. Contemporary strategies such as nucleic acid vaccines, developing vaccines based on whole cells, exploring new vaccine delivery methods, and creating shelf-stable formulas have made it possible to approach prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines in new ways. In this Special Issue, we will examine new advances in the field of vaccines and delivery systems that could help propel the field forward beyond its previous limits.

Dr. Antonio Carlos de Freitas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • vaccines
  • formulation
  • vaccine delivery
  • yeast-based vaccines
  • surface display
  • yeast shell
  • delivery systems
  • mRNA vaccines
  • DNA vaccines
  • subunit vaccine
  • adjuvant
  • virus-like particles (VLPs)
  • quality control

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3109 KiB  
Article
Humanized Major Histocompatibility Complex Transgenic Mouse Model Can Play a Potent Role in SARS-CoV-2 Human Leukocyte Antigen-Restricted T Cell Epitope Screening
by Jiejie Zhang, Feimin Fang, Yue Zhang, Xuelian Han, Yuan Wang, Qi Yin, Keyu Sun, Haisheng Zhou, Hanxiong Qin, Dongmei Zhao, Wanbo Tai, Jun Zhang, Zhang Zhang, Tiantian Yang, Yuwei Wei, Shuai Zhang, Shuai Li, Min Li and Guangyu Zhao
Vaccines 2025, 13(4), 416; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines13040416 - 15 Apr 2025
Viewed by 243
Abstract
Background: COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, poses a significant threat to human health. Vaccines designed for T-cell epitopes play an important role in eliminating the virus. However, T cell epitope screening often requires the use of a large number of peripheral blood mononuclear cells [...] Read more.
Background: COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, poses a significant threat to human health. Vaccines designed for T-cell epitopes play an important role in eliminating the virus. However, T cell epitope screening often requires the use of a large number of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from infected or convalescent patients, and if MHC humanized mice can be used for epitope screening, they will not have to wait for enough PBMCs to be available to screen for epitopes, thus buying time for epitope confirmation and vaccine design. Methods: In this study, we used SARS-CoV-2 BA.5 to infect HLA-A11/DR1, C57BL/6, hACE2 mice, and detected body weight changes, viral load, and pathological changes after infection. Fourteen days after the HLA-A11/DR1 and C57BL/6 mice were immunized against inactivated viruses, IgG antibodies were detected in mouse serum using ELISA, and IFN-γ produced by peptide stimulation of splenocytes was detected by ELISpot. Results: There is no obvious pathogenic phenotype of SARS-CoV-2 infection in HLA-A11/DR1 mice. Specific IgG antibodies were detected in serum after immunization of inactivated virus in both HLA-A11/DR1 and C57BL/6 mice, but specific IFN-γ was detected in splenocytes of HLA-A11/DR1 mice. Conclusions: Although HLA-A11/DR1 mice are unable to replicate the virus effectively in vivo, they are able to generate cellular immune responses after immunization inactivated viruses. Therefore, it can be used as a tool to substitute for human PBMCs in epitope screening, thus shortening the timeliness of T cell epitope screening and obtaining the immunogenicity information of new epitopes in a timely manner. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Vaccine Development and Delivery)
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22 pages, 5238 KiB  
Article
Design and Immune Profile of Multi-Epitope Synthetic Antigen Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2: An In Silico and In Vivo Approach
by Maria da Conceição Viana Invenção, Larissa Silva de Macêdo, Ingrid Andrêssa de Moura, Lucas Alexandre Barbosa de Oliveira Santos, Benigno Cristofer Flores Espinoza, Samara Sousa de Pinho, Lígia Rosa Sales Leal, Daffany Luana dos Santos, Bianca de França São Marcos, Carolina Elsztein, Georon Ferreira de Sousa, Guilherme Antonio de Souza-Silva, Bárbara Rafaela da Silva Barros, Leonardo Carvalho de Oliveira Cruz, Julliano Matheus de Lima Maux, Jacinto da Costa Silva Neto, Cristiane Moutinho Lagos de Melo, Anna Jéssica Duarte Silva, Marcus Vinicius de Aragão Batista and Antonio Carlos de Freitas
Vaccines 2025, 13(2), 149; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines13020149 - 31 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1289
Abstract
Background: The rapid advancement of the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 and its variants reinforced the importance of developing easy-to-edit vaccines with fast production, such as multi-epitope DNA vaccines. The present study aimed to construct a synthetic antigen multi-epitope SARS-CoV-2 to produce a DNA [...] Read more.
Background: The rapid advancement of the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 and its variants reinforced the importance of developing easy-to-edit vaccines with fast production, such as multi-epitope DNA vaccines. The present study aimed to construct a synthetic antigen multi-epitope SARS-CoV-2 to produce a DNA vaccine. Methods: A database of previously predicted Spike and Nucleocapsid protein epitopes was created, and these epitopes were analyzed for immunogenicity, conservation, population coverage, and molecular docking. Results: A synthetic antigen with 15 epitopes considered immunogenic, conserved even in the face of variants and that were able to anchor themselves in the appropriate HLA site, together had more than 90% worldwide coverage. A multi-epitope construct was developed with the sequences of these peptides separated from each other by linkers, cloned into the pVAX1 vector. This construct was evaluated in vivo as a DNA vaccine and elicited T CD4+ and T CD8+ cell expansion in the blood and spleen. In hematological analyses, there was an increase in lymphocytes, monocytes, and neutrophils between the two doses. Furthermore, based on histopathological analysis, the vaccines did not cause any damage to the organs analyzed. Conclusions: The present study generated a multi-epitope synthetic vaccine antigen capable of generating antibody-mediated and cellular immune responses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Vaccine Development and Delivery)
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