Influenza Plasmid DNA Vaccines: Progress and Prospects

Current influenza vaccines have long been used to fight flu infectious; however, recent advances highlight the importance of produce new alternatives. Even though traditional influenza vaccines are safe and usually effective, they need to be uploaded every year to anticipate circulating flu viruses. This limitation together with the use of embryonated chicken eggs as the substrate for vaccine production, is time-consuming and could involve potential biohazards in growth of new virus strains. Plasmid DNA produced by prokaryote microorganisms and encoding foreign proteins had emerged as a promising therapeutic tool. This technology allows the expression of a gene of interest by eukaryotic cells in order to induce protective immune responses against the pathogen of interest. In this review, we discuss the strategies to choose the best DNA vaccine to be applied in the treatment and prevention of influenza. Specifically, we give an update of influenza DNA vaccines developments, all involved techniques, their main characteristics, applicability and technical features to obtain the best option against influenza infections.