Adjuvant Delivery Method and Nanoparticle Charge Influence Peptide Amphiphile Micelle Vaccine Bioactivity.

Vaccines are an indispensable public health measure that have enabled the eradication, near elimination, and prevention of a variety of pathogens. As research continues and our understanding of immunization strategies develops, subunit vaccines have emerged as exciting alternatives to existing whole vaccine approaches. Unfortunately, subunit vaccines often possess weak antigenicity, requiring delivery devices and adjuvant supplementation to improve their utility.

Aptamer-displaying peptide amphiphile micelles as a cell-targeted delivery vehicle of peptide cargoes.

Peptide amphiphile micelles (PAMs) are attractive vehicles for the delivery of a variety of therapeutic and prophylactic peptides. However, a key limitation of PAMs is their lack of preferential targeting ability. In this paper, we describe our design of a PAM system that incorporates a DNA oligonucleotide amphiphile (antitail amphiphile-AA) to form A/PAMs.

Peptide Amphiphile Micelle Vaccine Size and Charge Influence the Host Antibody Response.

Vaccines are one of the best health care advances ever developed, having led to the eradication of smallpox and near eradication of polio and diphtheria. While tremendously successful, traditional vaccines (i.e.

Instructive Design of Triblock Peptide Amphiphiles for Structurally Complex Micelle Fabrication.

Hydrophobically driven self-assembly is a well-understood principle that has been shown to facilitate micelle formation. Although quite useful, the library of structures accessible is limited to only a few simplistic geometric configurations that are suboptimal for complex applications. It is believed that other physical phenomena like hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions can be exploited to complement hydrophobic interactions allowing for the design of structurally complex, aggregated micelles.

Vaccine Adjuvant Incorporation Strategy Dictates Peptide Amphiphile Micelle Immunostimulatory Capacity.

Current vaccine research has shifted from traditional vaccines (i.e., whole-killed or live-attenuated) to subunit vaccines (i.

Nanoparticles as synthetic vaccines.

As vaccines have transitioned from the use of whole pathogens to only the required antigenic epitopes, unwanted side effects have been decreased, but corresponding immune responses have been greatly diminished. To enhance immunogenicity, a variety of controlled release vehicles have been proposed as synthetic vaccines, but nanoparticles have emerged as particularly impressive systems due to many exciting publications. In specific, nanoparticles have been shown capable of not only desirable vaccine release, but can also be targeted to immune cells of interest, loaded with immunostimulatory substances termed adjuvants, or even induce desirable immune activating effects on their own.