Delivery of DNA vaccines: an overview on the use of biodegradable polymeric and magnetic nanoparticles

Vaccination offers a cost-effective approach to the control of endemic infectious and a less invasive treatment modality against cancers. Since the discovery that injecting DNA encoding antigens (expressed in vivo) results in the induction of CD8 T cells as well as antibody mediated immunity, researchers have tried to develop methods to consistently enhance this immunity to disease protective levels in humans. Adsorption, coformulation, or encapsulation with particles has been found to both stabilize DNA formulations, through preventing rapid degradation, and provide vaccine adjuvanting effects, largely due to effective uptake of particulate materials by antigen presenting cells. Recently, it has been shown that nanoparticles, as opposed to microparticles, based DNA vaccine carriers are preferentially taken up by dendritic cells resulting in the induction of maximal levels of combined humoral and cellular immunity.