Current Prospects in Peptide-Based Subunit Nanovaccines

Abstract

Vaccination renders protection against pathogens via stimulation of the body's natural immune responses. Classical vaccines that utilize whole organisms or proteins have several disadvantages, such as induction of undesired immune responses, poor stability, and manufacturing difficulties. The use of minimal immunogenic pathogen components as vaccine antigens, i.e., peptides, can greatly reduce these shortcomings. However, subunit antigens require a specific delivery system and immune adjuvant to increase their efficacy. Recently, nanotechnology has been extensively utilized to address this issue. Nanotechnology-based formulation of peptide vaccines can boost immunogenicity and efficiently induce cellular and humoral immune responses. This chapter outlines the recent developments and advances of nano-sized delivery platforms for peptide antigens, including nanoparticles composed of polymers, peptides, lipids, and inorganic materials.

Polymeric Nanoparticles as a Self‐Adjuvanting Peptide Vaccine Delivery System: The Role of Shape

“…A variety of antigens have been delivered by polymer-based particles; however, they require a) co-delivery with a strong adjuvant [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] ; b) encapsulation in particles [39][40][41] ; or c) conjugation to a polymer [28,37,38,[42][43][44] to achieve desired immunogenicity. In addition, while the influence of nanoparticle size on immune response has been widely reported [45,46] , shape could also play a role in a vaccine's ability to induce immune responses. [47,48] Unique shapes like tadpole have increased the selectivity and effective delivery and release of therapeutics in breast cancer.…”

Nanovaccines: Merits, and diverse roles in boosting antitumor immune responses

“… 100 In addition, peptide-based antigens are being extensively assessed in cancer nanovaccine designs. 9 , 10 , 103 , 113 Peptide-based nanovaccines are achieved by the incorporation of peptide antigens with NPs, they can boost immunogenicity of antigens and efficiently induce specific cellular and humoral immune responses. 9 , 114 For example, a variety of cell-penetrating peptide (CPP)-mediated vaccine delivery systems based on nanotechnology have been proposed, most of which are designed to promote the stability of antigens in vivo and their delivery into immune cells, 114 in particular, the CPP-mediated nanovaccines can enhance antigen uptake, processing, and presentation by APCs, which are the essential steps in activating an antitumor immune response.…”

“… 9 , 10 , 103 , 113 Peptide-based nanovaccines are achieved by the incorporation of peptide antigens with NPs, they can boost immunogenicity of antigens and efficiently induce specific cellular and humoral immune responses. 9 , 114 For example, a variety of cell-penetrating peptide (CPP)-mediated vaccine delivery systems based on nanotechnology have been proposed, most of which are designed to promote the stability of antigens in vivo and their delivery into immune cells, 114 in particular, the CPP-mediated nanovaccines can enhance antigen uptake, processing, and presentation by APCs, which are the essential steps in activating an antitumor immune response. 114 Furthermore, Daniel Shae et al developed a synthetic cancer nanovaccine platform (nanoSTING-vax) to mimic immunogenic cancer cells in its capacity to efficiently improve co-delivery of peptide antigens and the STING agonist, 103 the nanoSTING-vax significantly enhanced CD8+ T cells’ responses to peptide antigens, resulting in a dramatic improvement in response to immune checkpoint blockade in murine colon cancer and melanoma models.…”

The quest for nanoparticle-powered vaccines in cancer immunotherapy

“…To address this challenge, ongoing research explores various strategies, including virus-modified tumor vaccines, dendritic cell-based vaccines, DNA vaccines, protein vaccines, and peptide-based vaccines, as well as combinations of these strategies [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Among these approaches, peptidebased vaccines have emerged as the most commonly used ones [32][33][34][35][36]. Traditional vaccines, such as live-attenuated, inactivated, subunit, and conjugate vaccines [37][38][39], are not ideally suited for cancer vaccination due to their lack of specificity in distinguishing between normal host cells and cancerous host cells [40].…”