Development of therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of diseases

Abstract

Vaccines are one of the most effective medical interventions to combat newly emerging and re-emerging diseases. Prophylactic vaccines against rabies, measles, etc., have excellent effectiveness in preventing viral infection and associated diseases. However, the host immune response is unable to inhibit virus replication or eradicate established diseases in most infected people. Therapeutic vaccines, expressing specific endogenous or exogenous antigens, mainly induce or boost cell-mediated immunity via provoking cytotoxic T cells or elicit humoral immunity via activating B cells to produce specific antibodies. The ultimate aim of a therapeutic vaccine is to reshape the host immunity for eradicating a disease and establishing lasting memory. Therefore, therapeutic vaccines have been developed for the treatment of some infectious diseases and chronic noncommunicable diseases. Various technological strategies have been implemented for the development of therapeutic vaccines, including molecular-based vaccines (peptide/protein, DNA and mRNA vaccines), vector-based vaccines (bacterial vector vaccines, viral vector vaccines and yeast-based vaccines) and cell-based vaccines (dendritic cell vaccines and genetically modified cell vaccines) as well as combinatorial approaches. This review mainly summarizes therapeutic vaccine-induced immunity and describes the development and status of multiple types of therapeutic vaccines against infectious diseases, such as those caused by HPV, HBV, HIV, HCV, and SARS-CoV-2, and chronic noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, diabetes, and dyslipidemia, that have been evaluated in recent preclinical and clinical studies.

Serological response and immune‐related adverse events following COVID‐19 vaccination in cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…COVID-19 vaccine, expressing specific antigens, mainly induces humoral immunity via activating B lymphocytes to produce specific antibodies or elicit cell-mediated immunity via provoking cytotoxic T-cells. 56 Previous studies have reported that cancer patients have lower seroconversion rates after complete vaccination compared to healthy controls. 57 Immunocompromised cancer patients may have an inadequate immune response after COVID-19…”

Adhering to mainstream concepts homeopathic therapy interpreted as a combination of non-specific and protein-based antigen-specific immunotherapy

“…As discussed earlier (Sec.4), in therapeutic vaccines (and also in antigen-specific immunotherapy via homeopathic medicines), T-cell mediated (cellular) immunity plays the central role [43][44][45].…”

“…If the specific homeopathic medicine is given to the patient, an unfavourable outcome is expected because the administration of antigens similar to the antigens of a pathogen to a patient, who is already infected with the very pathogen, should be counterproductive. However, such counterintuitive idea is utilized in therapeutic vaccines or vaccine therapy, a type of antigen-specific immunotherapy, which has been in the limelight in recent years for the treatment of cancers, autoimmune and infectious diseases [43,44]. In vaccine therapy, the administration of the antigens of a pathogen to a patient, who is already infected with the pathogen, helps in curing or alleviating the existing disease (as opposed to prophylactic vaccines used for the prevention of disease).…”

“…The humoral response is also promoted by the stimulated CD4 T cells (precisely, follicular helper CD4 T cells) that help the B cells in producing antibodies [43][44][45]. The antigens in vaccine therapy can be delivered as inactivated pathogens, lysates of the pathogens, tumour lysates, proteins, peptides, nucleic acids etc.…”

Therapeutic antibody targeting natriuretic peptide receptor 1 inhibits gastric cancer growth viaBCL‐2‐mediated intrinsic apoptosis

“…Advances in genetic engineering and monoclonal antibody production have markedly improved the treatment success rates for a wide range of cancers, infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases 4 . Compared with low molecular weight compounds, antibody (Ab) drugs have several advantages, including high specificity and affinity, good stability in the blood stream, and a long half‐life, which means that a single administration often has long‐lasting therapeutic efficacy with reduced side effects 5 .…”