DNA vaccines for allergy treatment

In the past 10 years, a great number of studies have demonstrated that injection of plasmid DNA coding for certain genes results in the induction of humoral and cellular immune responses against the respective gene product. This vaccination approach covers a broad range of possible applications, including the induction of protective immunity against viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections, and it opens new perspectives for treatment of cancer. Surprisingly, DNA immunization also turned out as a promising novel type of immunotherapy against allergy. In this paper, we describe the construction of DNA vaccines for application in allergy models. Beyond, we offer a palette of recently developed modulations to optimize DNA vaccines for allergy treatment by increasing their immunogenicity and minimizing their anaphylactic potential.