Nanotechnology and COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines

Abstract

Today, nanotechnology has been studied in various fields of science. The field of vaccines is one of the areas that is being more attention today due to the COVID-19 pandemic (1). Nanoparticles can play both an adjuvant and a delivery roles in vaccine systems and also nanotechnology-based vaccines can stimulate both the humoral and cell-mediated immune responses (2). There are several companies involved in the production of Covid 19 vaccine, two of which, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, have been able to produce vaccines based on nanotechnology and mRNA. The above-mentioned companies have used lipid nanoparticles as a vaccine delivery system in their formulations. The lipid nanoparticles promote endosomal escape, prevention of enzymatic degradation and release their genetic cargo in the cytosol, where the mRNA is translated into proteins that can play an antigenic role and stimulate the immune system. The success of Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccines with ~95% efficacy in phase III clinical trials can be attributed to their especial nanocarrier, the "lipid nanoparticles"(3-5).