Journal Article

Putting endotoxin to work for us: Monophosphoryl lipid A as a safe and effective vaccine adjuvant

Mitchell, T. C, Casella, C. R

2008

Overview

The development of non-infectious subunit vaccines greatly increases the safety of prophylactic immunization, but also reinforces the need for a new generation of immunostimulatory adjuvants. Because adverse effects are a paramount concern in prophylactic immunization, few new adjuvants have received approval for use anywhere in the developed world. The vaccine adjuvant monophosphoryl lipid A is a detoxified form of the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide, and is among the first of a new generation of Toll-like receptor agonists likely to be used as vaccine adjuvants on a mass scale in human populations. Much remains to be learned about this compound's mechanism of action, but recent developments have made clear that it is unlikely to be simply a weak version of lipopolysaccharide. Instead, monophosphoryl lipid A's structure seems to have fortuitously retained several functions needed for stimulation of adaptive immune responses, while shedding those associated with pro-inflammatory side effects.

• Publisher: Basel : SP Birkhäuser Verlag Basel,Birkhäuser-Verlag,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: adaptive immunity / Adjuvants / Adjuvants, Immunologic - pharmacology / adverse effects / agonists / Biochemistry / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Biomedicine / Cell Biology / Endotoxins / Endotoxins - immunology / Human populations / Humans / Immune response / Immunization / Immunology / Immunostimulation / Life Sciences / Lipid A / Lipid A - analogs & derivatives / Lipid A - immunology / Lipids / Lipopolysaccharides / Lipopolysaccharides - pharmacology / mechanism of action / Monophosphoryl lipid A / population / Receptors, Immunologic - chemistry / Review / Side effects / subunit vaccines / Toll-like receptors / Toxicology / vaccine adjuvants / Vaccines / Vaccines - immunology