Vaccination is an effective way to reduce the
morbidity and
mortality of
infectious diseases. As a
needle-free transcutaneous
immunization (NF-TCI)
vaccination technology, microneedles (MNs), composed of multiple micro-
needles orderly attached to a substrate, can overcome the problems of low immune
efficiency, poor
compliance and waste of
resources that exists in the conventional
vaccination by
injection, thus becoming a
research hotspot in biomedicine. The microneedle
vaccine can directly break through the stratum corneum
barrier of the
skin without touching nerves and
blood vessels in the
dermis, and effectively delivers the
vaccine to the immune
cells in the
skin tissue to initiate the
immune response of the body, thus triggering strong humoral and cellular
immune processes.
Vaccine delivery via the MNs system possesses the advantages of high
safety, satisfying immune effect and practical economy, and shows great prospect in the prevention and
treatment of
infectious diseases and
antineoplastic therapy. This article reviews the development background of MNs in transcutaneous
immunization, the types of
vaccine delivery, the factors affecting the immune effect, the problems to be solved and development direction in the
future.