Water Soluble Polymer Microspheres As Vaccine Vehicles

The majority of viral vaccines establish a state of systemic protective immunity by injection oflive attenuated or inactivated virus preparations. The use of injectable vaccines has reduced theincidence of many viral diseases. Nevertheless, their usage is associated with some undesirable sideeffects. Live attenuated virus vaccines can cause systemic complications; inactivated vaccines can havelocal reactogenicity and even induce an allergic state. An alternative to the use of injectable vaccinesis the mucosal administration of non-replicating antigens. A major focus of the Virus Research Instituteis the study of delivery vehicles. Microencapsulation is the core technology in this endeavor. We willdevelop microsphere configured vaccine vehicles based on the well water soluble polyphosphazenes.This will be accomplished by optimizing size and composition of microspheres and determining the doseand mucosal route of administration that maximize the rapidity, amplitude and duration of the antibodyresponse to a single antigen dose. The distribution of the antibody response over the Ig isotypes as wellas over the IgG subclasses and the cellular immune response will be determined. Finally, the protectiveefficacy of the polymer microsphere immunization regimen in an animal model will be evaluated.