Themed collection mRNA vaccines against COVID-19: Celebrating the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

This review will delve into the crucial role of ionizable lipids in the development of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for efficient RNA delivery.

This review provides an overview of the latest research progress in mRNA structural optimization strategies and their delivery systems, and discusses key considerations for their future clinical use.

This review article demonstrated nucleic acid-based therapeutics and lipid nanoparticle type as a carrier of nucleic acid therapeutics for further applications of LNPs as flexible carriers in immuno-therapeutics and anti-cancer reagents.

A pictural representation showing that the combined contributions from the virology, nanotechnology and oncology fields can lead to an effective nano-vaccine against COVID-19.

This review summarizes the nanotechnology-based COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, including protein nanoparticle-based vaccines, lipid nanoparticle-formulated mRNA vaccines, and nanobodies as unique therapeutic antibodies.

We describe updated information on the various vaccines available over the last two decades, along with recent progress in developing 63 diverse vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

Schematic representation of various biomaterial-based systems for mRNA delivery: (a) protamine–mRNA complex; (b) lipid nanoparticle; (c) lipid nanoparticle with inorganic compounds (e.g. apatite); (d) cationic polymeric nanoparticle; (e) lipid–polymer hybrid nanoparticles including (i) mRNA–polymer complex core surrounded by a lipid shell and (ii) polymer core surrounded by a lipid shell with mRNA absorbed onto the surface; and (f) gold nanoparticle.

This review highlights significant progress in mRNA delivery platforms and therapeutic applications from the view of chemistry. Insights into the challenges and future development towards clinical translation of mRNA therapeutics are also provided.

A novel PEG-lipid-free COVID-19 mRNA vaccine triggers robust immune responses in mice without causing obvious adverse effects.

mRNA vaccines have emerged as a highly promising approach for preventing cancer and infectious diseases, attributed to their superior immunogenicity, rapid development speed, and quality-controlled scale production.

mRNA vaccines (i.e., COVID-19 vaccine) offer various advantages over traditional vaccines in preventing and reducing disease and shortening the time between pathogen discovery and vaccine creation.

Lyophilization of mRNA LNP formulations enables ambient storage of mRNA LNP in dry state.

The combination of ionizable lipids bearing alkyl chains and fluorinated alkyl chains improves the cellular uptake and mRNA expression of lipid nanoparticles.

mRNA-based gene delivery is a powerful strategy for many therapeutic areas. In this work, we used CuAAC to synthesize next-generation triazole-bearing mRNA 5' cap analogs and evaluated them as reagents for modification of in vitro transcribed mRNA.

Cationic lipids were designed to study the structure–activity relationship of hydrophobic parts. At a certain length, the unsaturation degrees significantly affected the transgene expression through enhancing membrane fusion and fluidity.

Addition of limited amounts of fusogenic lipid DOPE (Orange) and beta-sitosterol (red) improves transfection efficacy of dendritic cells and improves CDB* T-cell responses.

We have demonstrated the ability of mRNA-carrying lipid nanoparticles to activate NLRP3 inflammasomes is highly dependent on lipid composition, affecting the endo/lysosomal rupture or calcium influx/mitochondrial ROS production by the nanoparticle.

We present an automated high-throughput platform to screen novel ionisable lipids for lipid nanoparticle-mediated mRNA delivery, which is integrated into a fully-automated workflow for LNP preparation, characterisation and biological evaluation.

Alteration of phospholipid chemistry in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) can increase endosomal escape and control organ targeting.

New mRNA cap analogs have been designed, synthesized and characterized as useful reagents to obtain modified mRNA with potential therapeutic applications.