Rodents as pre-clinical models for predicting vaccine performance in humans

Vaccines represent a key building block for establishing a successful and sustainable control strategy against infectious diseases. Vaccine development often depends on the availability of correlates for protection and reliable animal models for the screening, selection and prioritization of potential vaccine candidates. This is performed according to their immunogenicity, efficacy and safety profiles in pre-clinical studies, which are also critical for identification of candidate antigens, selection of an optimal delivery system and design of appropriate vaccine formulations. Thus, pre-clinical studies in animal models are a prerequisite for addressing crucial issues and generating a solid pre-clinical package for the approval of clinical trials. This review addresses the strengths, limitations and perspectives of rodents as a vaccine development and pre-clinical validation tool.