Vaccination using synthetic nanoparticles targeting lymph nodes directly showed significant improvement of immune response. Mice were given flu vaccines using mast cell-based nanoparticles created by the research team at Duke University Medical Center. The animals were able to fight off the disease -- even when exposed to flu virus levels typically lethal for mice.
Their findings were published in the Nature Materials journal online on January 22, 2012.
Current flu vaccines don't offer complete protection from the influenza virus. It's not uncommon for vaccinated people to get the flu. Of course, getting a flu vaccination is still important because it can lower the severity of the disease.
By developing vaccines which can stimulate a more powerful immune reaction in animal models, this can pave the way for developing enhanced vaccines for humans. This can offer protection for many diseases and save many lives.
About vaccination: What is a vaccine?
Vaccination involves the administration of an antigenic material, a vaccine, to stimulate an immune response.
A vaccine can stimulate the immune system to develop an immunity to a pathogen. It can prevent or decrease the effects of infection.
Vaccines typically contain one or more adjuvants to boost the immune response. The adjuvant presents the antigen in such a way that greater or more rapid immune response is obtained from the vaccine.
What the team of scientists did:
Current vaccines have adjuvants that enhance immunity at the local injection site. When mast cells located on the skin are activated by the vaccine, they release granules. These mast-cell derived granules communicate with lymph nodes to enhance adaptive immunity.
The Duke researchers' unique strategy involved creating nanoparticles based on the granules naturally produced by the mast cells.
When used as adjuvants in vaccines and injected, these synthesized mast cell-based nanoparticles enhanced immunity.
The synthesized nanoparticles consist of a carbohydrate backbone with encapsulated inflammatory mediators, such as, tumour necrosis factor. These particles behaved like mast cells in animals, including draining lymph nodes and the timed release of the encapsulated mediators.
When these synthesized nanoparticles were used as an adjuvant in vaccinations of mice with haemagglutinin from the influenza virus, they enhanced adaptive immune responses. Increased survival of mice was observed even when they were exposed to flu virus levels typically lethal for mice.
These findings are important because it can pave the way for developing enhanced vaccines for humans.
Today's society is dealing with highly-resistant super-bugs associated with abuse of antibiotics as well as other contributing factors. Highly-mobile individuals make it very easy to spread super-bugs and other pathogens rapidly.
Super-vaccines are badly needed to fight super-bugs.
Developing more powerful vaccines can save millions of lives during epidemics and terrorist attacks using biological agents.
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