A novel adjuvant: polymerised serum albumin beads

There is an ongoing need to develop new vaccine formulations. To complement accumulating knowledge on the structure of antigens and their interaction with cells of the immune system, new vaccine vehicles to optimise the immunogenic potential of the antigen must be developed. Associated with this adjuvanticity, should be minimal adverse side effects. This study was initiated to develop a vaccine vehicle, consisting of covalently cross-linked serum albumin beads, themselves non-immunogenic, containing virus. Following inoculation, in vivo proteolysis of the beads would allow a gradual release of antigen for sustained immunostimulation. This system might have application in virus vaccine programmes to improve low immunogenic vaccines, to allow optimal delivery of the recently derived synthetic virus subunit peptides as well as for inactivated virus vaccine preparations. 35S-methionine labelled Blue Tongue Virus was used in this study