The concomitant use of the LTK63 mucosal adjuvant and of chitosan-based delivery system enhances the immunogenicity and efficacy of intranasally administered vaccines

In this paper we evaluated chitosan microparticles as a vaccine delivery system as well as the mucosal adjuvant LTK63, a nontoxic Escherichia coli enterotoxin (LT) mutant for the intranasal immunization with the group C meningococcal conjugated vaccine (CRM-MenC). Mice receiving intranasally the CRM-MenC vaccine formulated with chitosan microparticles and the LTK63 mutant showed higher titers of systemic and mucosal antibodies specific for the group C meningococcal polysaccharide as compared to those receiving the vaccine subcutaneously. In addition, high bactericidal activity was found in serum samples of mice immunized intranasally with the conjugated vaccine formulated together with the microparticles and the LT mutant. These results demonstrate that the concomitant use of chitosan microparticles and the LTK63 mutant significantly enhances the immunogenicity and the protective efficacy of vaccines given intranasally.