Vaccines & Vaccination

Biography

Biography: Didier Betbeder

Abstract

Nanoparticles can be used to deliver antigens to immune cells, therefore increasing their immunogenicity. A better knowledge of their mechanisms of interaction with cells and the biological fluids is necessary to fully understand their potential as delivery systems of antigens. Most of pathogens invade our organism using the mucosal route, therefore it is of interest of mimicking infection in order to elicit a protective immunity against infection. We used nanoparticles made from starch hydrolysate (1), these nanoparticles were loaded with toxoplasma gondii antigens. After intra-nasal administration we observed that they deliver these antigens in airways and are capable of eliciting humoral and cellular responses without the use of adjuvant. A challenge study in comparison of cholera toxin used as adjuvant showed that only mice vaccinated with the nanoparticles were protected (2). This lecture will give an overview of the mechanisms implied using nanoparticles to deliver antigens to the immune cells using the nasal route and will emphasize the interest of developing nanoparticulate carriers. (1) Dombu et al, Biomaterials, 2012 (2) Dimier-Poisson et al, Biomaterials, 2015