Aluminium Adjuvants in Vaccines—A Way To Modulate the Immune Response
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Immunology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 122
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Subunit vaccines, which contain antigen(s) isolated from the original pathogen or produced by recombinant DNA technology, require adjuvants to enhance the immune response. Aluminium-based adjuvants (ABAs) are the most common adjuvants in these vaccines. The antigen adsorbs onto the ABA, which facilitates the delivery of the antigen to potential antigen-presenting cells (APCs) through phagocytosis of micro-sized ABA particles.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic saw the successful introduction of mRNA-based vaccines in global vaccination programs. These vaccines, which encode specified antigen(s) of the pathogen, are also a type of subunit vaccine. Compared to other subunit vaccines, mRNA vaccines are safer to produce and administer. The success of mRNA vaccines prompts the question: will all vaccines in the future be mRNA-based?
Inflammation is the primary trigger of immune activation. How does the phagosomal pathway affect the activation of the innate immune system and the outcome of the immune response during vaccination? mRNA-based vaccines are administered as nano-sized particles, which are unlikely to be phagocytosed by cells of the innate immune system. Do micro-sized adjuvants activate the adaptive immune system as ABAs through stimulation of innate immune cells inducing inflammation? Does an mRNA-based vaccine induce a different immunological outcome compared with a traditional ABA-formulated vaccine?
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- The immune-stimulating mechanism of ABAs;
- The resulting immunological outcome of using mRNA vaccines compared with vaccines containing ABAs;
- ABAs and the phagosomal pathway;
- Trained immunity induced by ABA;
- Is the phagosome a signalling platform in the activation of the innate immune system?
- Trained immunity and its importance in the outcome of the vaccination;
- Epigenetic effects mediated by ABAs;
- Cellular and humoral immune responses to ABA and mRNA vaccines.
Prof. Dr. Håkan Eriksson
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- adjuvants and vaccines
- innate immune activation
- trained immunity
- inflammatory response
- cytokine modulation
- phagosomes and intracellular signalling
- epigenetic modulation
