Bacterial protoplast-derived nanovesicles as vaccine delivery system against bacterial infection

The notion that widespread infectious diseases could be best managed by developing potent, adjuvant-free vaccines has resulted in the use of various biological immune-stimulating components as new vaccine candidates. Recently, extracellular vesicles, also known as exosomes and microvesicles in mammalian cells and outer membrane vesicles in Gram-negative bacteria, have gained attention for the next generation vaccine. However, the more invasive and effective the vaccine is in delivery, the more risk it holds for severe immune toxicity. Here, in optimizing the current vaccine delivery system, we designed bacterial protoplast-derived nanovesicles (PDNVs), depleted of toxic outer membrane components to generate a universal adjuvant-free vaccine delivery system. These PDNVs exhibited significantly higher productivity and safety than the currently used vaccine delivery vehicles and induced strong antigen-specific humoral and cellular immune responses. Moreover, immunization with PDNVs loaded with bacterial antigens conferred effective protection against bacterial sepsis in mice. These nonliving nanovesicles derived from bacterial protoplast open up a new avenue for the creation of next generation, adjuvant-free, less toxic vaccines to be used to prevent infectious diseases.