REVIEW ARTICLE
Front. Immunol., 31 July 2013 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2013.00214
Vaccine adjuvants: mode of action
- 1Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc., Siena, Italy
- 2Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
Vaccines were first introduced more than 200 years ago and have since played a key role in the reduction of morbidity and mortality caused by infectious diseases. Many of the safest and most effective vaccines in use today are based on attenuated live viruses, as they mimic a live infection without causing disease. However, it is not always practical to take this approach, such as when it may not be safe to do so (e.g., for viruses that cause chronic infections such as HIV) or may not be feasible to manufacture (e.g., for viruses that do not grow well in cell culture such as HCV). In addition, it may preferable in some cases to target immune responses toward specific antigens from the pathogen, rather than the entirety of the genome. In these cases, subunit vaccines consisting of antigens purified from the pathogen or produced by recombinant DNA technology are being developed. However, highly purified proteins are typically not inherently immunogenic, as they usually lack the means to directly stimulate the innate immune system, and often require the addition of adjuvants to enhance vaccine potency. Despite more than a century of human use, only a few adjuvants are licensed today. However many adjuvants have been tested in humans and are in advanced stages of development. Much of the early work on adjuvants discovery and development was empirical producing safe and effective products, but without a clear understanding of how they worked. Recent insight into the functioning of the innate immune system has demonstrated its important role in triggering and shaping the adaptive immune response to vaccines.
Keywords: adjuvant, vaccine, human, innate immunity, toll-like receptor
Citation: De Gregorio E, Caproni E and Ulmer JB (2013) Vaccine adjuvants: mode of action.Front. Immunol. 4:214. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2013.00214
Received: 05 April 2013; Paper pending published: 29 April 2013;
Accepted: 12 July 2013; Published online: 31 July 2013.
Accepted: 12 July 2013; Published online: 31 July 2013.
Edited by:
Volker Gerdts, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-InterVac, Canada
Reviewed by:
Rae Ritchie, Bioscience Vaccines, Inc., USAVolker Gerdts, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-InterVac, Canada
Copyright: © 2013 De Gregorio, Caproni and Ulmer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Jeffrey B. Ulmer, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc., 350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA e-mail: jeffrey.ulmer@novartis.com
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