The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is in its sixth year and is being maintained by the inability of current spike-alone-based COVID-19 vaccines to prevent transmission leading to the con...
Peptides displayed on the surface of filamentous bacteriophage fd are able to induce humoral as well as cell-mediated immune responses, which makes phage particles an attractive antigen delivery system to design new vaccines. The immune response indu...
Transcutaneous vaccination has several advantages including having a noninvasive route and needle-free administration; nonetheless developing an effective transdermal formulation has not been an easy task because skin physiology, particularly the str...
Background/Objectives: Microneedles represent an innovative transdermal drug delivery approach, especially for protein antigens. This study aimed to develop a dual-functional, dissolvable microneedle system loaded with β-glucan and fucoidan in a...
The only licensed vaccine against tuberculosis is BCG. However, BCG has failed to provide consistent protection against tuberculosis, especially pulmonary disease in adults. Furthermore, the use of BCG is contraindicated in immunocompromised subjects...
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells are T-cells with recombinant receptors targeted to tumor antigens. CAR-T cell therapy has emerged as a mode of immunotherapy and is now being extensively explored in hematologic cancer. In contrast, CAR-T cell...
For decades, vaccines have played a significant role in protecting public and personal health against infectious diseases and proved their great potential in battling cancers as well. This review focused on the current progress of therapeutic subunit...
Recombinant immunoglobulins, derived from monoclonal antibodies recognizing the defined surface epitopes expressed on dendritic cells, have been employed for the past two decades to deliver antigens to dendritic cells in vivo, serving as critical too...
Vaccines are considered one of the most important bioproducts in medicine. Since the development of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, several types of vaccines for many diseases have been created. However, some vaccines have shown limitations as high cos...
The development of mucosal vaccines, which can generate antigen-specific immune responses in both the systemic and mucosal compartments, has been recognized as an effective strategy for combating infectious diseases caused by pathogenic microbes. Our...
Vaccination has saved billions of human lives and has considerably reduced the economic burden associated with pandemic and endemic infectious diseases. Notwithstanding major advancements in recent decades, multitude diseases remain with no available...
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are carbon allotropes consisting of one, two, or more concentric rolled graphene layers. These can intrinsically regulate immunity by activating the innate immune system. Mannose receptors (MR), a subgroup of the C-type lectin...
Adjuvant CIA09, composed of 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane (DOTAP)-based cationic liposomes and the toll-like receptor 4 agonist de-O-acylated lipooligosaccharide (dLOS), has been shown to enhance antibody and cellular immune responses to v...
Background: Protozoa of the genus Leishmania are characterized by their capacity to target macrophages and Dendritic Cells (DCs). These microorganisms could thus be exploited for the delivery of antigens to immune cells. Leishmania tarentolae is rega...
Prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a marker for diagnosis and targeted delivery of therapeutics to advanced/metastasized prostate cancer. We report a liposome-based system for theranostic delivery to PSMA-expressing (PSMA+) LNCaP cells. A l...
Mucin-1 (MUC1) is a highly relevant antigen for cancer vaccination due to its overexpression and hypo-glycosylation in a high percentage of carcinomas. To enhance the immune response to MUC1, our group has developed C3-liposomes that encapsulate the...
The adenylate cyclase toxin (CyaA) is one of the major virulence factors of Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent of whooping cough. CyaA is able to invade eukaryotic cells where, upon activation by endogenous calmodulin, it synthesizes massive a...
Background/Objectives: Leishmaniasis is a prevailing infectious disease transmitted via infected phlebotomine sandflies. The lack of an efficient vaccine with respect to immunogenic antigens and adjuvanted delivery systems impedes its control. Follow...
Specific delivery to antigen presenting cells (APC) and precise control of the intracellular fate of antigens are crucial to induce cellular immunity that directly and specifically attacks cancer cells. We previously achieved cytoplasmic delivery of...
Peanut and tree nut allergies account for most food-induced anaphylactic events. The standard allergy immunotherapy approach involves subcutaneous injection, which is challenging because severe adverse reactions can occur when antigens spread systemi...
Avian viral diseases including avian influenza, Marek’s disease and Newcastle disease are detrimental to economies around the world that depend on the poultry trade. A significant zoonotic threat is also posed by avian influenza viruses. Vaccin...
Nature offers a wide range of evolutionary optimized materials that combine unique properties with intrinsic biocompatibility and that can be exploited as biomimetic materials. The R5 and RRIL peptides employed here are derived from silaffin proteins...
To achieve efficient cancer immunotherapy, the induction of cytotoxic T lymphocyte-based cellular immunity is necessary. In order to induce cellular immunity, antigen carriers that can deliver antigen into cytosol of antigen presenting cells and can...
Background: Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are a promising platform for vaccine antigen delivery due to their ability to stimulate both innate and adaptive immune responses. These effects depend strongly on physicochemical properties such as size, polydi...
Background: Personalized cancer vaccines based on tumor neoantigens show great potential in cancer immunotherapy due to their high safety and specificity. However, it is inherently difficult to realize the efficiently targeted delivery of personalize...
In the last years, nanotechnologies have raised great interest because of the potential applications of engineered nanoparticles in nanomedicine (i.e., in vaccination, in diagnostic imaging procedures, and as therapeutic drug delivery systems). The...
Background/Objectives: Nasal vaccines are a promising strategy for enhancing mucosal immune responses and preventing diseases at mucosal sites by stimulating the secretion of secretory IgA, which is crucial for early pathogen neutralization. However,...
Traditional aluminum adjuvants can trigger strong humoral immunity but weak cellular immunity, limiting their application in some vaccines. Currently, various immunomodulators and delivery carriers are used as adjuvants, and the mechanisms of action...
One of the key requirements for successful vaccination via the mucosa is particulate antigen uptake. Poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) particles were chosen as well-known model carriers and ovalbumin (OVA) as the model antigen. Aiming at applicatio...
In this study, hybrid polyacrylic acid and Schizochytrium sp. microalgae (PAA/Schizo) microgels were synthesized by inverse emulsion assisted by ultrasound using the cell wall fraction as crosslinker. Physicochemical characterization of PAA/Schizo mi...
Streptococcus agalactiae is an emerging infectious disease adversely affecting Nile tilapia (Niloticus oreochromis) production in aquaculture. Research carried out in the last decade has focused on developing protective vaccines using different strat...
Nanoparticles have been identified in numerous studies as effective antigen delivery systems that enhance immune responses. However, it remains unclear whether this enhancement is a result of increased antigen uptake when carried by nanoparticles or...
Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have mainly focused on re-activating T-cell responses against cancer cells. However, both priming and activation of effector T-cell responses against cancer-specific antigens require cross-talk with dendritic c...
The advancements in the field of nanotechnology have provided a great platform for the development of effective antiviral vaccines. Liposome-mediated delivery of antigens has been shown to induce the antigen-specific stimulation of the humoral and ce...
In the last decades, technological advances for RNA manipulation enabled and expanded its application in vaccine development. This approach comprises synthetic single-stranded mRNA molecules that direct the translation of the antigen responsible for...
Background: Cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of death among women worldwide, with human papillomavirus (HPV) identified as a major contributing factor. This study investigates the immunostimulatory activity and antigen delivery efficiency...
Oral immune tolerance is a physiological process to achieve tolerance against autoimmunity by oral ingestion of self-antigen(s) or other therapeutics. At the cellular level, oral tolerance suppresses autoimmune diseases by activating FoxP-positive an...
Co-delivery of antigens and adjuvants to the same antigen-presenting cells (APCs) can significantly improve the efficacy and safety profiles of vaccines. Here, we report amine-grafted silica nanoparticles (A-SNP) as a tunable vaccine co-delivery plat...
Following its therapeutic effect in hematological metastasis, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy has gained a great deal of attention during the last years. However, the effectiveness of this treatment has been hampered by a number of cha...
The COVID-19 outbreak was a global pandemic with wide-ranging healthcare implications. Although several mRNA-based vaccines delivered using lipid nanoparticles (LNP) have been approved and demonstrated efficacy at reducing the severity and spread of...
Peptide-based vaccines for cancer have many advantages however, for optimization these immunogens should incorporate peptide epitopes that induce CD8, as well as CD4 responses, antibody and long term immunity. Cell penetrating peptides (CPP) with a c...
Despite the discovery of many potential antigens for subunit vaccines, universal protection is often lacking due to the limitations of conventional delivery methods. Subunit vaccines primarily induce antibody-mediated humoral responses, whereas pote...
Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), an enteric coronavirus, is the causative agent of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) that damages intestinal epithelial cells and results in severe diarrhea and dehydration in neonatal suckling pigs with up to 100...
Designing cancer vaccines has been at the forefront of cancer research for over two-and-a-half decades. In particular, delivery methods used to stimulate effective and long-lasting immune responses have been the major focus. This special issue presen...
Improving the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of vaccines is critical to reducing disease impacts. One strategy used to enhance the immunogenicity of vaccines is the selective delivery of protective antigens to the antigen presenting cells (AP...
Vaccination is the most successful and cost-effective method to prevent infectious diseases. However, many vaccine antigens have poor in vivo immunogenic potential and need adjuvants to enhance immune response. The application of systems biology to i...
Cell penetrating peptides (CPP), including the TAT peptide from the human immunodeficiency virus transactivator of transcription (HIV-TAT) protein and penetratin from Drosophila Antennapedia homeodomain protein, translocate various cargos including p...
The activation of immunosuppressed antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the tumor microenvironment is a key goal in modern cancer immunotherapy. Our laboratory utilizes a liposome-based immunotherapy platform that binds endogenous complement to deliver...
A strategy for stereoselective synthesis of molecular platform for targeted delivery of bimodal therapeutic or theranostic agents to the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) receptor was developed. The proposed platform contains a urea-based, PS...
The pharmaceutical use of bacteriophages as safe and inexpensive therapeutic tools is collecting renewed interest. The use of lytic phages to fight antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is pursued in academic and industrial projects and is the objec...
of 21