Mucosal adjuvants and delivery systems for oral and nasal vaccination

Mucosal vaccination offers the advantages of blocking pathogens at the portal of entry, improving patient compliance, facilitating vaccine delivery and decreasing the risk of unwanted spread of infectious agents via contaminated syringes. During the last several decades, an enormous expansion in the knowledge of mucosal immunity, cellular immunology and molecular biology has led to new perspectives for creating mucosal vaccines with the ability to induce a balanced systemic and secretory immune response. Better understanding of the mechanisms of action has resulted in an explosion of technologies. In addition to classical aluminium salts, components of microbial origin (DNA motifs, lipid A, bacterial toxins), emulsions and particles (immunostimulating complexes, liposomes, PLGA and saponins), as well as synthetic analogues and cytokines, are examples of adjuvants and delivery systems in use or under preclinical or clinical development.