Hexahistidine–Metal Assemblies: A Facile and Effective Codelivery System of Subunit Vaccines for Potent Humoral and Cellular Immune Responses

Fully effective vaccines must induce both potent humoral and cellular immunities. Nanoparticles coencapsulating antigens and adjuvants have shown promising advantages as subunit vaccines in many aspects. However, the low loading efficiency and complicated synthesis process of these nanomaterials need to be improved. Here, we utilized hexahistidine (His6)–metal assembly (HmA) particles as carriers to codeliver ovalbumin peptides and cytosine-phosphate-guanine oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG ODNs). We found that antigen/adjuvant-carrying HmA can efficiently enter into antigen-presenting cells and help the antigens escape from lysosomes to induce the maturation of these cells in vitro, characterized by increasing expression levels of costimulatory molecules and cytokines. More importantly, the vaccines with high biocompatibility can elicit strong humoral and cellular immunities by improving secretion of specific antibodies and cytokines, enhancing activation of DCs and T cells in vivo. Our results suggest that HmA provides a new approach for subunit vaccines by codelivery of antigens and adjuvants.