In today's medical industry, the range of vaccines that exist for administration in humans represents an eclectic variety of forms and immunologic mechanisms. Namely, these are the live attenuated viruses, inactivated viruses, subunit proteins, and virus-like particles for treating virus-caused diseases, as well as the bacterial-based polysaccharide, protein, and conjugated vaccines. Currently, a new approach to vaccination is being investigated with the concept of DNA vaccines. As an alternative delivery route to enhance the vaccination efficacy, microneedles have been devised to target the rich network of immunologic antigen-presenting cells in the dermis and epidermis layers under the skin. Numerous studies have outlined the parameters of microneedle delivery of a wide range of vaccines, revealing comparable or higher immunogenicity to conventional intramuscular routes, overall level of stability, and dose-sparing advantages. Furthermore, recent mechanism studies have begun to successfully elucidate the biological mechanisms behind microneedle vaccination. This paper describes the current status of microneedle vaccine research.
Antigen-Presenting Cells ; Bacterial Vaccines ; Dermis ; Epidermis ; Humans ; Skin ; Vaccination ; Vaccines ; Vaccines, DNA

During carcinogenesis, NF-kappaB mediates processes associated with deregulation of the normal control of proliferation, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Thus, suppression of NF-kappaB has been linked with chemoprevention of cancer. Accumulating findings reveal that heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is a molecular chaperone and a component of the IkappaB kinase (IKK) complex that plays a central role in NF-kappaB activation. HSP90 also stabilizes key proteins involved in cell cycle control and apoptosis signaling. We have determined whether the exogenous administration of isoflavone-deprived soy peptide prevents 7,12-dimethylbenz[alpha]anthracene (DMBA)-induced rat mammary tumorigenesis and investigated the mechanism of action. Dietary administration of soy peptide (3.3 g/rat/day) significantly reduced the incidence of ductal carcinomas (50%), the number of tumors per multiple tumor-bearing rats (49%; P < 0.05), and extended the latency period of tumor development (8.07 +/- 0.92 weeks) compared to control diet animals (10.80 +/- 1.30; P < 0.05). Our results have further demonstrated that soy peptide (1) dramatically inhibits the expression of HSP90, thereby suppressing signaling pathway leading to NF-kappaB activation; (2) induces expression of p21, p53, and caspase-3 proteins; and (3) inhibits expression of VEGF. In agreement with our in vivo data, soy peptide treatment inhibited the growth of human breast MCF-7 tumor cells in a dose-dependent manner and induced apoptosis. Taken together, our in vivo and in vitro results suggest chemopreventive and tumor suppressive functions of isoflavone-deprived soy peptide by inducing growth arrest and apoptosis.
9,10-Dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene ; Adenocarcinoma/*prevention & control ; Animals ; Apoptosis/*drug effects ; Breast Neoplasms/chemically induced/pathology/*prevention & control ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Chemoprevention ; Female ; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic ; HSP90 Heat-Shock Proteins/genetics/metabolism ; Humans ; Isoflavones/chemistry ; NF-kappa B/genetics/metabolism ; Peptides/chemistry/isolation & purification/therapeutic use ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Soybean Proteins/chemistry/*isolation & purification/*therapeutic use ; Soybeans/chemistry