Outer Membrane Vesicles: An Emerging Vaccine Platform
Dharmendra Kashyap, Mrutyunjaya Panda, Budhadev Baral, Nidhi Varshney, R Sajitha, Vasundhra Bhandari, Hamendra Singh Parmar, Amit Prasad, Hem Chandra Jha
Abstract
Vaccine adjuvants are substances that improve the immune capacity of a recombinant vaccine to a great extent and have been in use since the early 1900s; they are primarily short-lived and initiate antigen activity, mainly an inflammatory response. With the developing technologies and innovation, early options such as alum were modified, yet the inorganic nature of major vaccine adjuvants caused several side effects. Outer membrane vesicles, which respond to the stressed environment, are small nano-sized particles secreted by gram-negative bacteria. The secretory nature of OMV gives us many benefits in terms of infection bioengineering. This article aims to provide a detailed overview of bacteria's outer membrane vesicles (OMV) and their potential usage as adjuvants in making OMV-based vaccines. The OMV adjuvant-based vaccines can be a great benefactor, and there are ongoing trials for formulating OMV adjuvant-based vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. This study emphasizes engineering the OMVs to develop better versions for safety purposes. This article will also provide a gist about the advantages and disadvantages of such vaccines, along with other aspects.