An Overview of the Use of Nanoparticles in Vaccine Development

Abstract

Vaccines represent one of the most significant advancements in public health since they prevented morbidity and mortality in millions of people every year. Conventionally, vaccine technology focused on either live attenuated or inactivated vaccines. However, the application of nanotechnology to vaccine development revolutionized the field. Nanoparticles emerged in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry as promising vectors to develop future vaccines. Regardless of the striking development of nanoparticles vaccines research and the variety of conceptually and structurally different formulations proposed, only a few of them advanced to clinical investigation and usage in the clinic so far. This review covered some of the most important developments of nanotechnology applied to vaccine technologies in the last few years, focusing on the successful race for the preparation of lipid nanoparticles employed in the successful anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Keywords: DNA; SARS-CoV-2; biomedicine; biotechnology; lipids; mRNA; nanoparticles; therapy; vaccine.

Figure 1

Historical evolution of the different stages of RNA development and its therapeutic applications from the mRNA discovery in 1961 to the development of mRNA therapies in 2022. Reproduced from [29].

Figure 2

Representation of the different mRNA structural elements that are included in mRNA vaccine, including the cap and tale fragments, the untranslated regions, and the coding sequence. Reprinted with permission from [32] 2022, Frontiers.

Figure 3

Description of the mRNA-based lipid nanoparticle general structure and their basic components together with their main characteristics. Reproduced from [41,42].

Figure 4

Mechanisms of activation of an antigen presenting cell through a DNA vaccine. This activation can be either directly (endogenous via) or through an intermediate cell that captures the plasmid and produces the pathogen antigen that will be recognized by the APC (exogenous via).

Figure 5

Illustration of different types of nanoparticle delivery structures employed in the development of vaccine technologies. (A) virus-like particle, (B) liposome, (C) immune stimulating complexes, (D) polymeric nanoparticle, (E) inorganic nanoparticle, (F) emulsion and (G) exosome. Reproduced from [80].

Figure 6

Effect of Angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 and the subsequent receptor blockade for the treatment of the disease. Reprinted with permission from [91] 2020, Elsevier B.V.