Animal vaccine technology: An overview

Abstract

This chapter introduces the principles of vaccines and discusses recent advances for the various forms of vaccine. Live and attenuated vaccines remain the most effective at eliciting robust immune responses, but reversion to virulence poses great safety concern. Since mutations are inherent for living pathogens, the development of nonliving, exogenous protein components as vaccines provides a safe alternative. However, protein components do not provide sufficient “danger” signals required for strong immune response; therefore, adjuvants are generally needed. DNA vaccines can induce endogenous expression of immunogenic components, but the risk of chromosome integration and the optimal site of antigen expression still need to be addressed. While vaccines have contributed enormously to the control of infectious diseases in the past, even more sophisticated vaccines may be necessary to combat ever-emerging, new pathogens.