https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2025.09.014
This new article publication from Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, discusses the construction of a localized immune niche via supramolecular hydrogel vaccine to elicit durable and enhanced immunity against infectious diseases.
Vaccines represent one of the most potent strategies for protecting humans from the threat of infectious diseases. Conventional vaccines elicit acquired immunity by mimicking pathogen characteristics; however, their protective efficacy is limited by inadequate spatiotemporal control of antigen delivery, resulting in suboptimal antigen exposure in lymphoid tissues and transient adaptive immune activation. The authors of this article developed a self-assembling peptide-based supramolecular hydrogel vaccine to establish a localized immune niche, demonstrating its remarkable efficacy in inducing durable and potent immunity against infectious diseases. It was found that this in situ-formed supramolecular hydrogel vaccine serves as a reservoir for antigens and adjuvants while recruiting antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs) to accumulate within the scaffold. With the aid of adjuvant, the DCs exhibit enhanced antigen processing and presentation, creating an immunologically active niche that triggers robust B cell and T cell responses. Following a single vaccination, mice immunized with the hydrogel vaccine developed robust humoral immunity and sustained antibody production for 112 days, achieving potent neutralization activity. This study offers a novel approach to spatiotemporal control of vaccine responses that enables durable and enhanced immunity against infectious diseases.
Keywords: Self-assembling peptide, Supramolecular nanofiber, Hydrogel scaffold, Immune niche, Vaccine, Infectious disease, Single vaccination, Durable immunity
Graphical Abstract: available at https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2211383525006112-ga1_lrg.jpg
The in situ formed hydrogel vaccine creates an immune niche to coordinate the spatiotemporal dynamics of vaccine components and dendritic cells, eliciting durable and enhanced immunity against infectious diseases.
