Authors:
James J. Moon, Heikyung Suh, Anna Bershteyn, Matthias T. Stephan, Haipeng Liu, Bonnie Huang, Mashaal Sohail, Samantha Luo, Soong Ho Um, Htet Khant, Jessica T. Goodwin, Jenelyn Ramos, Wah Chiu, & Darrell J. Irvine
Summary:
Vaccines based on recombinant proteins avoid the toxicity and antivector immunity associated with live vaccine (for example, viral) vectors, but their immunogenicity is poor, particularly for CD8+ T-cell responses. Synthetic particles carrying antigens and adjuvant molecules have been developed to enhance subunit vaccines, but in general these materials have failed to elicit CD8+ T-cell responses comparable to those for live vectors in preclinical animal models. Here, we describe interbilayer-crosslinked multilamellar vesicles formed by crosslinking headgroups of adjacent lipid bilayers within multilamellar vesicles. Interbilayer-crosslinked vesicles stably entrapped protein antigens in the vesicle core and lipid-based immunostimulatory molecules in the vesicle walls under extracellular conditions, but exhibited rapid release in the presence of endolysosomal lipases. We found that these antigen/adjuvant-carrying vesicles form an extremely potent whole-protein vaccine, eliciting endogenous T-cell and antibody responses comparable to those for the strongest vaccine vectors. These materials should enable a range of subunit vaccines and provide new possibilities for therapeutic protein delivery.
Source:
Nature Materials; 10, 243-251 (02/20/11)