Targeted Delivery of Vaccine to Dendritic Cells by Chitosan Nanoparticles Conjugated with a Targeting Peptide Ligand Selected by Phage Display Technique

The paper presents a novel dendritic cells (DC)-targeting peptide, TPAFRYS (TP) identified by phage display technique and conjugated to chitosan in order to develop an efficient DC-targeting vaccine delivery carrier. TP-conjugated chitosan nanoparticles (TPC-NPs) were prepared with ovalbumin (OVA) as a model vaccine by ionic gelation. Flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry studies demonstrated the higher targeting ability of TPC-NPs to DCs in compared to chitosan NPs. Moreover, TPC-NPs exhibited higher targeting specificity in DCs than macrophage and myoblasts. Furthermore, immunization of mice with OVA-loaded TPC-NPs enhanced OVA-specific serum IgG and IgG isotype antibodies production. Thus, DC-targeting strategy demonstrates a potential approach to enhance the effectiveness of vaccines.