Research Progress of mRNA Vaccines and Polymer-based Delivery Systems

doi:10.13523/j.cb.2211043

China Biotechnology

2023, Vol. 43

Issue (5): 55-68 DOI: 10.13523/j.cb.2211043

Research Progress of mRNA Vaccines and Polymer-based Delivery Systems

ZHANG Ya-ru¹,WANG Hui-mei¹,CHI Yon-jie²,GAO Yuan¹,ZHAO Ying¹,BAO Jia-xin³,ZHANG Jin²,WANG Lian-yan^2,^**(

)

1 College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Resource Utilization, Northeast Forestry University,Haerbin 150040, China
2 State Key Laboratory, Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
3 College of Pharmacy, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Haerbin 150040, China

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Abstract

There was a global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 2019. The pandemic of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 shows high infectivity and fatality rate, which has caused a great burden on human health and economic development. Vaccination is an important way to prevent and control the prevalence and spread of SARS-CoV-2. A lot of vaccines are developed and applied to prevent and control it, such as inactivated viruses vaccines, recombinant subunit protein vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines and messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. The mRNA is a new drug model, which can use the body’s own translation system to express proteins with different functions. Therefore, it can be used in the treatment of many diseases, which is also considered to be a substitute for DNA and recombinant protein mediated therapy. With mRNA synthesis, purification and modification in vitro, scientists find that the mRNA is easy to be degraded due to its instability, which leads to lower transfection efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary to fabricate and develop a suitable delivery system for improving its stability and translation efficiency. The successful delivery system makes mRNA drugs attract more and more attention in cancer treatment, infectious disease prevention, protein replacement therapy and gene editing. Until now, many delivery carriers have been designed and evaluated including dendrimers, liposome, nano-emulsions and polymer nanoparticles. In addition, mRNA vaccines show such excellent characteristics as simple preparation, short development and production cycle and little cytotoxicity. Most importantly, mRNA vaccines are easy to scale up. All these advantages result in mRNA vaccines’ suitablity to deal with infection outbreaks. Here we will review the mRNA vaccine, the mechanism of action, the delivery vector and the administration ways of the mRNA vaccine, in order to provide reference for the mRNA vaccine research and development.

Key words： mRNA vaccines Action mechanism Delivery system Administration method COVID-19 mRNA vaccine

Received: 22 November 2022 Published: 01 June 2023

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	ZHANG Ya-ru
	WANG Hui-mei
	CHI Yon-jie
	GAO Yuan
	ZHAO Ying
	BAO Jia-xin
	ZHANG Jin
	WANG Lian-yan

Cite this article:

ZHANG Ya-ru, WANG Hui-mei, CHI Yon-jie, GAO Yuan, ZHAO Ying, BAO Jia-xin, ZHANG Jin, WANG Lian-yan. Research Progress of mRNA Vaccines and Polymer-based Delivery Systems. China Biotechnology, 2023, 43(5): 55-68.

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https://manu60.magtech.com.cn/biotech/10.13523/j.cb.2211043 OR https://manu60.magtech.com.cn/biotech/Y2023/V43/I5/55

Fig.1 Clinical stage distribution of mRNA products

Fig.2 Mechanism of action of mRNA vaccine

Fig.3 Nanocarriers commonly used for drug and vaccine delivery

Table 1 Comparison between lipid nano delivery system and polymer nano carrier

Fig.4 Approximate sizes of different polymer based nanoformulations and their comparison with biomolecules or biological sizes

Fig.5 Schematic diagram of dendrimer structure

Fig.6 Schematic diagram of polymer micelles loading mRNA

Fig.7 Structural schematic of mRNA loaded polymer nanospheres and nanocapsules

Table 2 Key features of Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccines


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