These vaccines can elicit strong humoral and cellular immune responses against specific pathogens, as well as provide protection against infection in a number of animal models.

Many types of protein NPs exist, including self-assembling NPs, bacteriophage-derived NPs, plant-derived NPs, and human virus-based vectors, and these particular categories will be covered in this review. The applicability of protein nanoparticles (NPs) as vaccine scaffolds is promising to prevent infectious diseases, and they have been explored for a number of viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic diseases. Subunit vaccines carry far fewer safety concerns due to their inability to cause vaccine-based infections. Conventional vaccine platforms, such as live attenuated vaccines and whole inactivated vaccines, can be difficult to manufacture, may cause severe side effects, and can potentially induce severe infection. Notably, devastating diseases such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) currently do not have vaccine therapies. Infectious diseases are a major threat to global human health, yet prophylactic treatment options can be limited, as safe and efficacious vaccines exist only for a fraction of all diseases.

Protein scaffold for bacterial vaccine