Innate immunity and new adjuvants

Abstract

Vaccination remains the most cost-effective biomedical approach to the control of infectious diseases in livestock. Vaccines based on killed pathogens or subunit antigens are safer but are often ineffective and require coadministration with adjuvants to achieve efficacy. Unfortunately, most conventional adjuvants are poorly defined, complex substances that fail to meet the stringent criteria for safety and efficacy desired in new generation vaccines. A new generation of adjuvants that work by activating innate immunity presents exciting opportunities to develop safer, more potent vaccines. In this review the authors highlight the role of innate immunity in protection against infectious disease and provide some examples of promising new adjuvants that activate innate immunity. They do not review the conventional adjuvants present in many vaccines since they have been reviewed extensively previously.