Vaccines based on structure-based design provide protection against infectious diseases

Abstract

Vaccines elicit immune responses, provide protection against microorganisms and are considered as one of the most successful medical interventions against infectious diseases. Vaccines can be produced using attenuated virus or bacteria, recombinant proteins, bacterial polysaccharides, carbohydrates or plasmid DNA. Conventional vaccines rely on the induction of immune responses against antigenic proteins to be effective. The genetic diversity of microorganisms, coupled with the high degree of sequence variability in antigenic proteins, presents a challenge to developing broadly effective conventional vaccines. The observation that whole protein antigens are not necessarily essential for inducing immunity has led to the emergence of a new branch of vaccine design termed ‘structural vaccinology’. Structure-based vaccines are designed on the rationale that protective epitopes should be sufficient to induce immune responses and provide protection against pathogens. Recent studies demonstrated that designing structure-based vaccine candidates with multiple epitopes induce a higher immune response. As yet there are no commercial vaccines available based on structure-based design and most of the structure-based vaccine candidates are in the preclinical stages of development. This review focuses on recent advances in structure-based vaccine candidates and their application in providing protection against infectious diseases.

Keywords::

• epitope
• infectious disease
• structure-based design
• vaccine

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Ian A Wilson, Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA, USA) for reviewing and editing the manuscript. The authors are also thankful to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve the manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Key issues

• • The genetic diversity of microorganisms, coupled with a high degree of sequence variability in antigenic proteins presents a challenge to developing broadly effective conventional vaccines.

• • Whole protein antigens are not essential in inducing immunity and this has led to the emergence of a new branch of vaccine design termed structural vaccinology.

• • Structure-based vaccines are designed on the rationale that protective epitopes should be sufficient to induce immune responses.

• • Multiple epitopes could be incorporated into the antigen based on the principles of structural vaccinology to provide protection against several serotypes of the pathogen.