Nanoparticle-Mediated Vaccine Delivery Systems

Nanoparticle-mediated vaccine delivery systems harness nanoscale materials to transport antigens and immunostimulatory molecules to immune cells with enhanced precision and efficacy. These systems include lipid‐based particles, polymeric nanospheres, inorganic cores and hybrid membrane vesicles, each engineered to shield antigens from degradation, promote targeted uptake by antigen‐presenting cells and control antigen release kinetics. By mimicking the size and structural features of pathogens, nanoparticles enable multivalent antigen presentation and can co‐deliver adjuvants to modulate the balance of cellular and humoral immune responses. Recent advances in surface functionalisation and modular assembly have further improved manufacturing reproducibility, antigen loading capacity and stability under ambient conditions. Globally, these technologies are accelerating development of vaccines against respiratory viruses, bacterial infections and emerging pathogens, while offering potential for single‐dose regimens and thermostable formulations suited to low‐resource settings.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Researchers have introduced a modular platform that remodels bacterial outer membrane vesicles to display biotinylated antigens via a synthetic biotin‐binding scaffold. This approach allows a broad array of protein, glycan and small‐molecule antigens to be rapidly attached to vesicles, eliciting strong antigen‐specific antibody responses in animal models without compromising vesicle integrity. In separate work, nanomaterial strategies have been applied to challenging global pathogens such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis by tuning nanoparticle composition and multivalency to direct immune activation toward protective pathways. These studies emphasise precise control over trafficking to lymphoid tissues, modularity of antigen presentation and the capacity to engineer durable and tailored immune profiles through iterative design of particle properties.

Nanoparticle-Mediated Vaccine Delivery Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in nanoparticle-mediated vaccine delivery systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Nanoparticle: A particle between 1 and 100 nanometres in size, engineered to deliver biological or chemical cargo to specific cells or tissues.

Antigen presenting cell: An immune cell (such as a dendritic cell or macrophage) that processes and displays antigen fragments to lymphocytes to initiate adaptive immunity.

Outer membrane vesicle: A naturally released, spherical bilayer structure derived from the outer membrane of Gram‐negative bacteria, used here as a carrier for vaccine antigens.

Multivalent display: Presentation of multiple copies of an antigen on a single nanoparticle surface to enhance immune cell recognition and activation.

References

1. Multivalent antigen display on nanoparticle immunogens increases B cell clonotype diversity and neutralization breadth to pneumoviruses. Immunity (2023).
2. A modular vaccine platform enabled by decoration of bacterial outer membrane vesicles with biotinylated antigens. Nature Communications (2023).
3. A multiantigenic antibacterial nanovaccine utilizing hybrid membrane vesicles for combating Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (2024).
4. Advances in nanomaterial vaccine strategies to address infectious diseases impacting global health. Nature Nanotechnology (2020).