Cationic liposomes as vaccine adjuvants

Abstract

Cationic liposomes are lipid-bilayer vesicles with a positive surface charge that have re-emerged as a promising new adjuvant technology. Although there is some evidence that cationic liposomes themselves can improve the immune response against coadministered vaccine antigens, their main functions are to protect the antigens from clearance in the body and deliver the antigens to professional antigen-presenting cells. In addition, cationic liposomes can be used to introduce immunomodulators to enhance and modulate the immune response in a desirable direction and, thereby, represent an efficient tool when designing tailor-made adjuvants for specific disease targets. In this article we review the recent progress on cationic liposomes as vehicles, enhancing the effect of immunomodulators and the presentation of vaccine antigens.

Keywords::

• adjuvant
• cationic liposome DC-Chol
• DDA
• delivery system
• 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane immunomodulator
• vaccine

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues in the Department of Infectious Disease Immunology for contributing to the ideas contained in this review.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Ida Rosenkrands and Peter Andersen are co-inventors of patents relating to cationic liposomes as vaccine adjuvants. All rights have been assigned to the Statens Serum Institut. All authors are employees at Statens Serum Institut. The authors have no other 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 apart from those disclosed.

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