DNA Vaccination - Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages

Table 1. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Nucleic Acid-Based Immunization
Advantages Disadvantages
  • Subunit vaccination with no risk for infection
  • Antigen presentation by both MHC class I and class II molecules
  • Able to polarise T-cell help toward type 1 or type 2
  • Immune response focused only on antigen of interest
  • Ease of development and production
  • Stability of vaccine for storage and shipping
  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Obviates need for peptide synthesis, expression and purification of recombinant proteins and the use of toxic adjuvants
  • Long-term persistence of immunogen
  • In vivo expression ensures protein more closely resembles normal eukaryotic structure, with accompanying post-translational modifications
  • Limited to protein immunogens (not useful for non-protein based antigens such as bacterial polysaccharides)
  • Risk of affecting genes controlling cell growth
  • Possibility of inducing antibody production against DNA
  • Possibility of tolerance to the antigen (protein) produced
  • Potential for atypical processing of bacterial and parasite proteins

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