Recombinant Protein Subunits

Recombinant protein vaccines are subunit vaccines that utilize only a small part of the pathogen and elicit immune response against few protective antigens.1 These vaccines are composed of antigenic viral proteins that can be expressed in heterologous expression systems.2,3 A wide range of expression systems are used for expressing these proteins such as Escherichia coli, mammalian cells, yeast, etc.2,3 This ensures that the antigen has a well-defined composition, no risk of pathogenicity in its use  and the antigen synthesis and purification can be scaled up in cost-effective manner.2,3 Since proteins cannot replicate, the side effects with these vaccines are negligible.1 These vaccines are more secured than live attenuated and inactivated killed vaccines.3 In the past 3 decades, there has been a trend towards developing these subunit vaccines formulated using specific antigenic proteins with suitable potent adjuvants.3

References :

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