Manufacture of Mesoporous Silicon Microparticles (MSMPs) as Adjuvants for Vaccine Delivery

Abstract

The advent of computational approaches has accelerated the identification of vaccine candidates like epitope peptides. However, epitope peptides are usually very poorly immunogenic and adequate platforms are required with adjuvant capacity to verity immunogenicity and antigenicity of vaccine subunits in vivo. Silicon microparticles are being developed as potential new adjuvants for vaccine delivery due to their physicochemical properties. This chapter explains the methodology to fabricate and functionalize mesoporous silicon microparticles (MSMPs) which can be loaded with antigens of different nature, such as viral peptides, proteins, or carbohydrates, and this strategy is particularly suitable for delivery of epitopes identified by computer.

Keywords: Adjuvant; Carbohydrates; Functionalization; Mesoporous silicon microparticles; Peptides; Vaccine.