Carbohydrate-based vaccine adjuvants – discovery and development

Abstract

Introduction: The addition of a suitable adjuvant to a vaccine can generate significant effective adaptive immune responses. There is an urgent need for the development of novel po7tent and safe adjuvants for human vaccines. Carbohydrate molecules are promising adjuvants for human vaccines due to their high biocompatibility and good tolerability in vivo.

Areas covered: The present review covers a few promising carbohydrate-based adjuvants, lipopolysaccharide, trehalose-6,6′-dibehenate, QS-21 and inulin as examples, which have been extensively studied in human vaccines in a number of preclinical and clinical studies. The authors discuss the current status, applications and strategies of development of each adjuvant and different adjuvant formulation systems. This information gives insight regarding the exciting prospect in the field of carbohydrate-based adjuvant research.

Expert opinion: Carbohydrate-based adjuvants are promising candidates as an alternative to the Alum salts for human vaccines development. Furthermore, combining two or more adjuvants in one formulation is one of the effective strategies in adjuvant development. However, further research efforts are needed to study and develop novel adjuvants systems, which can be more stable, potent and safe. The development of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry can improve the study of carbohydrate-based adjuvants.

Keywords:

• adjuvant
• carbohydrate
• inulin
• lipopolysaccharide
• QS-21
• trehalose-6,6′-dibehenate
• vaccine

Declaration of interest

J Yin is supported by the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (No. 21302068), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (No. BK20130127), the specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20120093120002) and the 2013 Project Based Personnel Exchange Program (PPP) with China Scholarship Council (CSC) and German Academic Exchange (DAAD). J Hu is supported by the the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (No. BK20150140). M Lu is further supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). 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.

Notes

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