Combination adjuvants: the next generation of adjuvants?

Abstract

Adjuvants are critical components of many vaccines. The majority of existing vaccines contain a single adjuvant. Owing to their inherent limitations, no single adjuvant is capable of inducing all the protective immune responses required in the many different vaccines. Consequently, investigators are exploring the potential of using formulations with multiple adjuvants in a vaccine. An emerging paradigm is that careful selection of adjuvant combinations can result in complementary and even synergistic enhancement of immune responses to vaccines. This approach is promising and presents tremendous opportunities for vaccinologists to tailor immune responses to specific vaccines. In this article, adjuvant combinations at different stages of development will be reviewed.

Keywords::

• adjuvants
• delivery systems
• immunostimulators
• vaccines

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Several of the adjuvant formulations described in this review have been developed at the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Organization (Canada) or are currently being evaluated. Research in the authors’ laboratories has been supported by funding from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation via a grant through the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Krembil Foundation, Merial Limited, Saskatchewan Agriculture Development Fund and the Alberta Livestock Research Institute. 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.