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Exploiting the pliability and lateral mobility of Pickering emulsion for enhanced vaccination

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 187–194 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

A major challenge in vaccine formulations is the stimulation of both the humoral and cellular immune response for well-defined antigens with high efficacy and safety. Adjuvant research has focused on developing particulate carriers to model the sizes, shapes and compositions of microbes or diseased cells, but not antigen fluidity and pliability. Here, we develop Pickering emulsions—that is, particle-stabilized emulsions that retain the force-dependent deformability and lateral mobility of presented antigens while displaying high biosafety and antigen-loading capabilities. Compared with solid particles and conventional surfactant-stabilized emulsions, the optimized Pickering emulsions enhance the recruitment, antigen uptake and activation of antigen-presenting cells, potently stimulating both humoral and cellular adaptive responses, and thus increasing the survival of mice upon lethal challenge. The pliability and lateral mobility of antigen-loaded Pickering emulsions may provide a facile, effective, safe and broadly applicable strategy to enhance adaptive immunity against infections and diseases.

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Figure 1: PPAS tailoring for adjuvant application.
Figure 2: PPAS enhances antigen uptake and determines the intracellular fate of antigens.
Figure 3: Local reactions and draining lymph node engagement.
Figure 4: PPAS exerts robust prophylactic and therapeutic effects towards EG.7/OVA.
Figure 5: PPAS functions as a potent adjuvant for H1N1 and MUC1 anti-tumour vaccination.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Ngai from Department of Chemistry, Chinese University of Hong Kong, for his unyielding support in the preparation and stability evaluations of Pickering emulsion. We express our appreciation of S. Li and J. Zhang from Center for Biological Imaging (CBI), Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science for their help in taking and analysing SIM and Cyro-SEM images. Our gratitude also goes to M. Wang and P. Jiao, from Center of Biomedical Analysis, Tsinghua University, for their support in the operation and analysis of flow cytometer in this manuscript. We also want to thank X. Yu from National Engineering Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine, College of Life Science, Jilin University, for B16/MUC1 tumour cells. This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project (No. 2014ZX09102045) and National Natural Science Foundation of China project (21576268).

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Author notes

  1. Yufei Xia and Jie Wu: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P.R. China

    Yufei Xia, Jie Wu, Wei Wei, Yiqun Du, Chunyu Miao, Hua Yue, Zhiguo Su & Guanghui Ma

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P.R. China

    Yufei Xia

  3. PLA Key Laboratory of Biopharmaceutical Production & Formulation Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, P.R. China

    Jie Wu, Zhiguo Su & Guanghui Ma

  4. State Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology & Institute of Immunology, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, P.R. China

    Tao Wan & Xuetao Cao

  5. Hualan Biological Bacterin Co., Ltd, Xinxiang 453003, P.R. China

    Xiaowei Ma, Wenqi An & Aiying Guo

  6. Center for Biological Imaging, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, P.R. China

    Shuoguo Li

  7. Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing 211816, P.R. China

    Zhiguo Su & Guanghui Ma

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Contributions

J.W. and Y.X. conceived and designed the experiments. Y.X. and Y.D. carried out the experiments. G.M., X.C., J.W. and W.W. contributed ideas and suggestions for optimization and characterization of Pickering emulsion and in vivo evaluation and data analysis. T.W. and Y.X. conducted the comparison of PPAS and APDC. X.M., W.A. and A.G. facilitated evaluation of the influenza challenge model. S.L. assisted in taking and analysing microscope images. Y.X. wrote the manuscript. H.Y. facilitated the data and file processing. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. G.M., Z.S., W.W. and J.W. revised and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhiguo Su or Guanghui Ma.

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Xia, Y., Wu, J., Wei, W. et al. Exploiting the pliability and lateral mobility of Pickering emulsion for enhanced vaccination. Nat. Mater. 17, 187–194 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat5057

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