Nucleic Acid Vaccines

Abstract

DNA vaccines, a type of nucleic acid vaccine, have emerged as one of the recent developments in immunology and recombinant DNA technology, offering great potential in terms of ease of manufacture, maintenance, and safety compared to conventional vaccines. Since their discovery, DNA vaccines have evolved immensely, resulting in the employment of new techniques such as gene guns, in vivo electroporation, and nanoparticle-based carriers to enhance the delivery of vaccines into the cells. Starting from the failures of the first-generation DNA vaccines to the near-success second-generation vaccines, several strategies including codon optimization, antigen design, and heterologous prime-boost have greatly helped in strengthening the vaccine's immunogenicity. The purpose of developing these third-generation vaccines is primarily to solve existing medical complications like cancer, along with therapeutic uses, to address health problems, and to aid the rapid eradication of sudden global outbreaks of infectious diseases including Ebola and COVID-19. In this review, we focus on the recent developments and strategies employed to improve the efficacy of DNA vaccines and discuss their mechanism of action, potential concerns, progress achieved, and a brief update on its clinical applications.