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REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Vaccines and Molecular Therapeutics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1584876
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Insights in Nucleic Acid Approaches for Vaccine and Biologic DeliveryView all 6 articles
Nucleic Acid Vaccines: Innovations, Efficacy, and Applications in At-Risk Populations
Provisionally accepted- College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, United States
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For more than two centuries, the field of vaccine development has progressed through the adaptation of novel platforms in parallel with technological developments. Building off the advantages and shortcomings of first and second-generation vaccine platforms, the advent of third-generation nucleic acid vaccines has enabled new approaches to tackle emerging infectious diseases, cancers, and pathogens where vaccines remain unavailable. Unlike traditional vaccine platforms, nucleic acid vaccines offer several new advantages, including their lower cost and rapid production, which was widely demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond production, DNA and mRNA vaccines can elicit unique and targeted responses through specialized design and delivery approaches. Considering the growth of nucleic acid vaccine research over the past two decades, the evaluation of their efficacy in at-risk populations is paramount for refining and improving vaccine design. Importantly, the aging population represents a significant portion of individuals highly susceptible to infection and disease. This review seeks to outline the major impairments in vaccine-induced responses due to aging that may be targeted for improvement with design and delivery components encompassing mRNA and DNA vaccine formulations. Results of pre-clinical and clinical applications of these vaccines in aged animal models and humans will also be evaluated to outline current successes and limitations observed in these platforms.
Keywords: Nucleic acid vaccines, mRNA vaccine, DNA vaccine, Aging, immunosenescence
Received: 27 Feb 2025; Accepted: 09 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Konopka, Edgerton and Kutzler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michele Aileen Kutzler, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.