Genome-based vaccine development: a short cut for the future

Abstract

Bacterial infectious diseases remain a major cause of deaths and disabilities in the world. Although conventional vaccinology approaches were successful in conferring protection against several diseases, they failed in providing efficient vaccines against many others. Together to the sequencing of the first genome, a new chapter in the vaccinology history started to be written. Reverse vaccinology changed the way to think about vaccine development, using the information provided by the microorganisms' genome against themselves. Since then, reverse vaccinology has evolved and helped researchers to overcome the limits of the conventional vaccinology approaches and led to the discovery and development of novel vaccines concerning emerging diseases, like Neisseria meningitidis B and Streptococcus agalactiae. A lot of work must be done, but deciphering the information provided by genome sequences and using it to better understand the host-pathogen interactions has proved to be the key for protection.