Biomimetic Nanotoxoid Vaccines Against Biological Threat Agents
Abstract
Threat agents resulted from biochemical weaponry, combat wound infections, and venomous injuries impose significant threats upon U.S. military personnel. To reduce defense threats, vaccination against these threat agents continues to be a significant prophylaxis approach. However, conventional vaccine production relies largely on antigen denaturation to minimize toxicity, an approach that inevitably compromises critical antigenic information. Such tradeoff between safety and efficacy has dramatically hindered vaccine efficacy. Therefore, there is an urgent need for alternative vaccine strategies capable of launching potent and safe prophylaxis countermeasures. Cell membrane-coated nanoparticles can potentially address the drawbacks of existing vaccine development. In this strategy, synthetic nanoparticles are wrapped with membranes derived from natural cells such as red blood cells and white blood cells. Upon nanoparticle interaction, intact non-denatured toxins lose their motional freedom and are detained by the membrane cloaked nanoparticles. The resulting nanoparticle-toxin complex (namely nanotoxoid ) can sequester a diverse range of membrane-active toxins without altering their antigenic characteristics. The overarching objective of this proposal is to develop cell membrane-coated nanoparticles as a biomimetic nanotoxoid vaccine platform to launch effective prophylaxis medical countermeasures against various biological threat agents. As a platform prophylaxis technology, the design of biomimetic nanotoxoid vaccines combines engineering flexibility of synthetic materials and intricate antigenic characteristics of biological membranes, which together offer tremendous opportunities to modulate immunity against defense threats. These new nanotoxoid vaccines share a common core-shell nanostructure despite membrane and toxin diversity. Such unique combination in one design is especially suitable for a "plug and play" vaccine platform against multiple classes of threat agents.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 23, 2018
- Source ID
- HDTRA11810014
Entities
People
- Liangfang Zhang
Organizations
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- University of California, San Diego