The Importance of RNA-Based Vaccines in the Fight against COVID-19: An Overview

Abstract

In recent years, vaccine development using ribonucleic acid (RNA) has become the most promising and studied approach to produce safe and effective new vaccines, not only for prophylaxis but also as a treatment. The use of messenger RNA (mRNA) as an immunogenic has several advantages to vaccine development compared to other platforms, such as lower coast, the absence of cell cultures, and the possibility to combine different targets. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of mRNA as a vaccine became more relevant; two out of the four most widely applied vaccines against COVID-19 in the world are based on this platform. However, even though it presents advantages for vaccine application, mRNA technology faces several pivotal challenges to improve mRNA stability, delivery, and the potential to generate the related protein needed to induce a humoral- and T-cell-mediated immune response. The application of mRNA to vaccine development emerged as a powerful tool to fight against cancer and non-infectious and infectious diseases, for example, and represents a relevant research field for future decades. Based on these advantages, this review emphasizes mRNA and self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) for vaccine development, mainly to fight against COVID-19, together with the challenges related to this approach.

Influence of Nanobubble Size Distribution on Ultrasound-Mediated Plasmid DNA and Messenger RNA Gene Delivery

“…Therapeutic genetic materials such as DNA or RNA are required to reach the target cells in sufficient quantities to yield beneficial outcome. Recently, intramuscular injection of messenger RNA genes has demonstrated significant effectivity as a vaccine against coronavirus disease ( Machado et al, 2021 ). It has increasingly become evident in the clinical situation that facilitation of therapeutic nucleic acid into cells is an important modality for the treatment of many diseases.…”

Death after the Administration of COVID-19 Vaccines Approved by EMA: Has a Causal Relationship Been Demonstrated?

“…Comirnaty ® and Spikevax ® work by introducing a piece of mRNA that contains the instructions for synthesizing the Spike protein, a surface protein that acts as a key allowing the virus to enter the cells. Once the human cells produce the Spike protein, they rapidly break down the mRNA [37][38][39]. This is the first time an mRNA vaccine has been administered to the population.…”

Intratumoral electroporation of a self-amplifying RNA expressing IL-12 induces antitumor effects in mouse models of cancer

“…Use of RNA for vaccination has become a reality with the recent development of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, which have proven to be very efficient to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. 48 Although these vaccines are based on mRNA, some prototypes have also been developed based on saRNA, which in preclinical studies have shown to elicit similar immune responses but at much lower doses. 49 , 50 This is probably due to the fact that saRNA can not only express higher antigen levels, but it can also elicit IFN type I responses and apoptosis, enhancing immune responses and allowing release of the expressed antigens, respectively.…”