Clay-lipid nanohybrids: Toward influenza vaccines and beyond

Abstract

The design of nanostructured materials based on natural components, as it is the case of clay minerals, offers new solutions to biomedical challenges such as more efficient and storage stable influenza vaccines. The influenza A virus is a periodically recurring threat to public health and has caused several pandemics, the last one in 2009. Vaccines have proved to be a good means to fight this disease but storage related vaccine degradation and low potency are still unresolved problems and require novel and improved vaccine formulations. At the same time nanostructured hybrid materials have gained importance in biomedicine in recent years due to a better understanding of the control and design of their structural and functional properties.1 Here, we present clay-lipid hybrid materials as adjuvants in influenza vaccines and with a possible projection to leishmaniasis and other vaccines. Self-assembly of phospholipid molecules on the surface of microfibrous sepiolite clay and lamellar Mg/Al layered double hydroxide renders a biocompatible lipid bilayer membrane that ensures non-degrading immobilization of proteins and other biological species including viral particles and DNA.2,3 Immunization tests in mice showed the superior immunogenicity of clay-lipid supported virus in comparison to a commercial aluminum hydroxide adjuvant.4 Furthermore, the clay-lipid hybrids demonstrated their potential suitability in advanced sub-unit vaccines and as transfection agent in DNA vaccines for leishmaniasis.5