Abstract
Of the 80-plus known infectious agents pathogenic for humans, there are now more than 30 vaccines against 26 mainly viral and bacterial infections and these greatly minimize subsequent disease and prevent death after exposure to those agents. This article describes the nature of the vaccines, from live attenuated agents to subunits, their efficacy and safety, and the kind of the immune responses generated by those vaccines, which are so effective. To date, all licensed vaccines generate especially specific antibodies, which attach to the infectious agent and therefore can very largely prevent infection. These vaccines have been so effective in developed countries in preventing mortality after a subsequent infection that attempts are being made to develop vaccines against many of the remaining infectious agents. Many of the latter are difficult to manipulate; they can cause persisting infections or show great antigenic variation. A range of new approaches to improve selected immune responses, such as immunization with DNA or chimeric live vectors, viral or bacterial, are under intense scrutiny, as well as genomic analysis of the agent.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Plotkin, S. A. and Orenstein, W. A. eds. (2004) Vaccines, 4th ed. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA.
Ada, G. (2001) Advances in immunology: vaccines and vaccination. N. Engl. J. Med. 345, 1042–1053.
Offit, P. A., Glass, R. I., Clark, H. F., and Ward, R. I. (2004) Rotavirus vaccine. In: Vaccine, 4th ed. (Plotkin, S. A. and Orenstein, W. A., eds.). W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 1327–1347.
Pringle, C. R. (2003) Temperature sensitive mutant vaccines. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P. eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ, pp. 19–36.
Belshe, R. B., Maassab, H. F., and Mendelman, H. F. (2004) Influenza vaccine—live. In: Vaccine, 4th ed. (Plotkin, S. A. and Orenstein, W. A., eds.). W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA. pp. 371–388.
Belshe, R. B. (2004) Current status of live, attenuated influenza virus in the US. Virus Res. 103, 177–185.
Van Cott, J. L., Chatfield, S. N., Roberts, M., et al. (1998). Regulation of host immune responses by modification of Salmonella virulence genes. Nat. Med. 4, 1247–1252.
Saunders, N. J. and Butcher, S. (2003) The use of complete genome sequences in vaccine design. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 19 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P. eds.). Humana, Totawa, NJ, Pp. 301–312.
Tartaglia J., Perkus, M. E., and Taylor, J. (1992) NYVAC, a highly attenuated strain of vaccinia virus. Virology, 188, 217–232.
Daly, J. M., Wood, J. M., and Robertson, J. S. (1998) Cocirculation and divergence of human influenza viruses. In: Textbook of Influenza (Nicholson, K. G., Webster, R. G., and Hay, A. J., eds.). Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK. Pp. 168–180.
Edwards, K. M. and Decker, M. D. (2004) Pertussis vaccine. In: Vaccine, 4th ed. (Plotkin, S. A. and Orenstein, W. A., eds.). W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA. pp. 471–528.
Avery, O. T. and Goebel, W. F. (1929) Chemoimmunological studies on conjugated carbohydrate proteins. 11. Immunological specificity of synthetic sugar-protein antigen. J. Exp. Med. 50, 533–550.
Peeters, C. C. A. M., Lagerman, P. R., de Weers, O., et al. (2003). Preparation of polysaccharide-conjugate vaccines. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 10 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 153–174.
Pizza M., Fontana, M. R., Scarlato, V., and Rappuoli, R. (2003) Genetic detoxification of bacterial toxins. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 9. (Robinson A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.) Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 133–152.
Hilleman, M. R. (1992) Vaccine perspectives from the vantage of hepatitis B. Vaccine Res. 1, 1–15.
Egea, E., Iglesias, A., Salazar, J. R., et al. (1991). The cellular basis for the lack of antibody responses to hepatitis B vaccine in humans. J. Exp. Med., 173, 531–542.
Griffiths, E. and Knezevic, I. (2003) Assuring the quality and safety of vaccines. Regulatory expectations for licensing and batch release. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 22 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 353–376.
Farrington, P. and Miller, E. (2002) Clinical trials. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 21 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 335–352.
Langmuir, I. D., Bregman, D. J., Kurland, L., et al. (1984). An epidemiological and clinical evaluation of Guillain-Barre syndrome reported in association with the administration of swine influenza virus vaccine. J. Epidemiol. 119, 841–879.
Weibel, R. E., Casuta, V., Bessor, D. E., et al. (1998) Acute encephalopathy followed by permanent brain injury or death associated with further attenuated measles vaccines. Pediatrics 101, 383–387.
Levin, A. (2000). Vaccines today. Ann. Intern. Med. 133, 661–664.
Stratton, K. R., Howe, C. J., and Johnston, R. B. (1994) Adverse Events Associated with Childhood Vaccination. Evidence Bearing on Causality. Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. pp. 1–464.
Galaska, A. M., Lauer, B. A., Henderson, R. H., and Keja, J. (1984) Indications and contraindications for vaccines used in the expanded programme of immunization. Bull. WHO. 62, 357–366.
Halsey, N. A. (1993) Increased mortality following high titer measles vaccines: too much of a good thing. Pediatr. Infect. Dis. 12, 462–463.
Murphy, T. V., Gargiullo, P. M., Nassoudi, M. S., et al. (2001) Intussusception among infants given an oral rotavirus vaccine. N. Engl. J. Med. 344, 564–572.
Amin, J. and Wong, M. (1999) Measles, mumps, rubella immunization, autism, and inflammatory bowel disease: an update. Communicable Disease Intelligence 23, 222.
Elliman, D. and Bedford, H. (2001) MMR vaccine: the continuing saga. Br. Med. J. 322, 183–184.
Fenner, F., Henderson, D. A., Ariota, I., Jesek, Z., and Ladnyi, I. D. (1988) Smallpox and its Eradication. World Health Organization, Geneva.
World Health Organization. New polio cases confirmed in Guinea, Mali and Sudan. Cases reported as Kano, Nigeria, resumes immunizations. WHO press release, 24 Aug. 2004. World Health Organization, Geneva.
de Quadros, C. A. (2004) Is global measles eradication feasible? In: Vaccines: Preventing Disease, Protecting Health (de Quadros, C. A., ed.). Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C. pp. 35–42.
Dowdle, W. R. (2004) Perspectives for the elimination/eradication of diseases with vaccines. In: Vaccines: Preventing Disease, Protecting Health (de Quadros, C. A., ed.). Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C. pp. 354–362.
Saphire, E. O., Parren, P. W., Pantophlet, R., et al. (2001) Crystal structure of a neutralizing human IgG against HIV-1: a template for vaccine design. Science 293, 1155–1159.
Tam, J. P. (1988) Synthetic peptide vaccine design: synthesis and properties of a high density multiple antigenic peptide system. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 85, 5409–5413.
D’Aessandro, U., Leach, A., Diakeley, C. J., et al. (1995) Efficacy trial of a malaria vaccine SPf66 in Gambian infants. Lancet 346, 462–467.
Pruksakorn, S., Currie, B., Brandt, E., et al. (1994) Towards a vaccine for rheumatic fever: identification of a conserved target epitope on M protein of group A streptococci. Lancet 344, 639–642.
Brandt, E. R., Sriprakash, K. S., Hobb, R. I., et al. (2000) New multi-determinant strategy for group A streptococcal vaccine designed for the Australian aboriginal population. Nat. Med. 6, 455–459.
Staib, C. and Sutter, G. (2003) Live viral vectors: vaccinia virus. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. Ed. 4 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. Pp. 51–68.
Fooks, A. R. (2003) Live viral vectors: construction of a replication-deficient recombinant adenovirus. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. Ed. 4 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 37–50.
Tartaglia, J., Gettig, R., and Paoletti, E. (1994). Vectores, animal viruses. In: Encyclopedia of Virology (Webster, R. G. and Granoff, A., eds.). Academic, New York. pp. 1528–1536.
Bowe, F., Pickard, D. J., Anderson, R. J. et al. (2003) Development of attenuated Salmonella strains that express heterologous antigens. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. ed. 6 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P. eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 83–100.
Jackson, R. J., Ramsay, A. J., Christensen, C. D., et al. (2001) Expression of mouse interleukin-4 by a recombinant ectromelia virus suppresses cytolytic lymphocyte responses and overcomes genetic resistance to mousepox. J. Virol. 75, 1205–1210.
McDonnell, W. M. and Askari, F. K. (1995) Molecular medicine; DNA vaccines. N. Engl. J. Med. 324, 42–45.
Lowrie, D. B. (2003) DNA vaccination: an update. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. Ed. 23. (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 377–390.
Delves, P. J. and Roitt, I. M. (2000) The immune system. N. Engl. J. Med. 343, Part 1.37–49, Part 2. 108–117.
Jackson, D. C., Ada, G. I., and Tha Lha, R. (1976) Cytotoxic T cells recognise very early, minor changes in ectromelia-infected target cells. Aust. J. Exp. Biol. Med. Sci. 54, 349–363.
Geisow, M. J. (1991) Unravelling the mysteries of molecular audit: MHC class I restriction. Tibtech 9, 403–404.
Ada, G. L. (2004) The immunology of vaccination. In: Vaccines, 4th ed. (Plotkin, S. A. and Orenstein, W. A., eds.). W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA. pp. 31–46.
Taylor, G. (1994) The role of antibody in controlling and/or clearing virus infections. In: Strategies in Vaccine Design (Ada, G. L., ed.). Landes, Austin, TX. pp. 17–34.
Ramshaw, I. R., Ruby, J., Ramsay, A., et al. (1992) Expression of cytokines by recombinant vaccinia viruses: a model for studying cytokines in virus infections in vivo. Immunol. Rev. 127, 157–182.
Ada, G. L. (1990) The immune response to antigens; the immunological principles of vaccination. Lancet 335, 52–56.
Alfonso, I. C. C., Scharton, T. M., Vieira, L. Q., et al. (1994) The adjuvant effect of IL-12 in a vaccine against Leishmaniasis major. Science 263, 235–237.
Sharma, D. P., Ramsay, A. J., Maguire, D. J., et al. (1996) Interleukin 4 mediates down regulation of antiviral cytokine expression and cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses and exacerbates vaccinia virus infection in vivo. J. Virol. 70, 7103–7107.
Stewart-Tull, D. E. S. (2003) Adjuvant formulations for experimental vaccines. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine, Vol. 87: Vaccine Protocols, 2. ed. 11 (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage, M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ, pp. 175–194.
Allsopp, C. E. M., Plebanski, M., Gilbert, S., et al. (1996) Comparison of numerous delivery systems for the induction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes by immunization. Eur. J. Immunol. 26, 1951–1959.
Hammond, J., McGarvey, P., and Yusibov, B., eds. (1999) Plant biotechnology: new procedures and applications. Curr. Top. Microbiol. Immunol. 240, 1–196.
Arntzen, C. J. (2004) Oral vaccines derived from transgenic plants. In: Vaccines, Preventing Disease, Protecting Health (de Quadros, C. A., ed.). Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C., pp. 256–262.
Vermig, P. (2004) Edible vaccines not ready for main course. Nat. Med. 10, 881.
Glenn, G. M., Taylor, D. N., Li, X., et al. (2000) Transcutaneous immunization: a human vaccine delivery strategy using a patch. Nat. Med. 6, 1403–406.
Beadle, J. (2004) The Powderjet particle-mediated epidermal delivery of DNA vaccines. A new technology. In: Vaccines. Preventing Disease, Protecting Health (de Quadros, C. A., ed.). Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C. pp. 273–280.
Graham, B. S., Matthews T. J., Belshe, R. B., et al. (1993) Augmentation of human immunodeficiency virus type-1 neutralizing antibody by priming with gp160 recombinant vaccinia and boosting with rgp160 in vaccinia-naive adults. J. Inf. Dis. 167, 533–537.
Leong, K. H., Ramsay, A. J., and Morin, M. J. (1995) Generation of enhanced immune responses by consecutive immunization with DNA and recombinant fowlpox virus. In: Vaccines, ’95 (Brown, F., Chanock, R., Ginsberg, H., and Norrby, E., eds.). Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. pp. 327–331.
AIDS Vaccines. (2004) HIV dodges one-two punch. Science 305, 1545.
Saunders, N. J. and Butcher, S. (2004) The use of complete genome sequences in vaccine design. In: Methods in Molecular Medicine. Vaccine Protocols, 2 ed. (Robinson, A., Hudson, M. J., and Cranage M. P., eds.). Humana, Totowa, NJ. pp. 301–312.
Wizemann, T. M., Heinrichs, J. H., Adamou, J., et al. (2001) Use of a whole genome approach to identify vaccine molecules affording protection against Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. Infect. Immunol. 69, 1593–1598.
Diamond, J. (1997) Guns, Germs and Steel. A Short History of Everybody for the past 13,000 Years. Vintage, UK, Random House, London.
Doherty, P. C. and Zinkernagel, R. M. (1975) A biological role for the major histocompatibility antigens. Lancet i, 1406–1409.
Bjorkman, P. J., Saper, M. A., Samraoui, B., et al. (1987) The foreign antigen-binding site and T cell recognition regions of class 1 histocompatibility antigens. Nature 329, 512–518.
Morens, D. M., Folkers, G. K., and Fauci, A. S. (2004) The challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Nature 430, 242–249.
Kobasa, D., Takada, A., Shinya, K., et al. (2004) Enhanced virulence of influenza A viruses with the haemagglutinin of the 1918 pandemic virus. Nature 431, 703–707.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ada, G. Overview of vaccines and vaccination. Mol Biotechnol 29, 255–271 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1385/MB:29:3:255
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/MB:29:3:255