in vivo evaluation of chitosan as an adjuvant in subcutaneous vaccine formulations

Regina Scherließ, Simon Buske, Katherine Young, Benjamin Weber, Thomas Rades, Sarah Hook

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

67 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Vaccines utilising pure antigens instead of whole pathogens and alternative administration routes require the use of potent adjuvants and effective antigen delivery systems. Chitosan has been reported to act as both an adjuvant as well as a matrix for delivery systems. Chitosan is a natural product produced predominantly from crab shell and commercially available preparations vary in molecular weight, degree of deacetylation and purity. In this study, the impact of chitosan characteristics (molecular weight, degree of deacetylation, particle size, viscosity and impurities) on adjuvant activity were examined. It could be shown that the degree of immune response differed if different chitosan qualities were used and this could be attributed to different characteristics of the chitosan qualities: the immunoadjuvant effect of chitosan probably is a result of an interplay between chemical properties such as molecular weight and degree of deacetylation and physical properties such as particle size and preparation technique, which impacts characteristics such as solubility and viscosity. Hence, the chitosan quality to be used as adjuvant in vaccine preparations needs to be selected carefully.
Original languageEnglish
JournalVaccine
Volume31
Issue number42
Pages (from-to)4812-9
Number of pages8
ISSN0264-410X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2013

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