Dendritic cell-based vaccine: the state-of-the-art vaccine platform for COVID-19 management

ABSTRACT

Introduction

A correlation between new coronaviruses and host immunity, as well as the role of defective immune function in host response, would be extremely helpful in understanding coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pathogenicity, and a coherent structure of treatments and vaccines. As existing vaccines may be inadequate for new viral variants emerging in various regions of the world, it is a vital requirement for fresh and effective therapeutic alternatives.

Area covered

Immunotherapy may give a viable protective option for COVID-19, a disease that is currently a big burden on global health and economic systems. Herein, we have outlined three dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines for COVID-19 which are in human clinical trials and have shown encouraging outcomes.

Expert opinion

With existing knowledge of the virus, and the nature of DC, DC-based vaccines may be proven to be effective in inducing long-lasting protective immunity, especially T cell responses.

KEYWORDS:

• Dendritic cell
• DC
• vaccine
• the lentiviral vaccine
• COVID-19
• SARS-CoV-2
• immunotherapy

Article highlights

• DC-based vaccines have the advantage of being more potent in inducing both CD4 and CD8 T cell responses compared to other antigen-presenting cells

• DC-based vaccines can induce immunological memory and can cross-prime via the MHC class I pathway, which is necessary for CD8+ T cell activation.

• DC-based vaccines have the advantage of being effective T cell stimulators.

• DC-based vaccines have been developed and tested in human clinical trials over the last 25 years with many improvements over the years

• Three clinical trials against SARS-CoV-2 with DC-based vaccines are in progress

Declaration of interest

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.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.