Preparation and characterization of micro-bead vaccines for oral administration

Vaccination is overall a promising approach to diseases because of its low frequency of side effects and its great preventative and therapeutic effects. Differently fromparenteral vaccination, which cannot induce mucosal immunological defense and is invasive and painful, oral and/or nasal vaccines elicit both systemic and mucosalimmunity and have a much higher patient’s compliance. Mucosally administered antigens are, however, poorlyimmunogenic and therefore the association of vaccine with nano or micro particulate carrier systems has been investigated and has shown that after oral administration the immuneresponse is elicited [l]. In this work, poly (D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), as a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer ,has been employedin the production of micro-carriers for encapsulation of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) Virus. The micro-particlesthen incorporated with chitosan and alginate to produce large particles up to 1 mm. The particles can be used as vaccine against the most common virus in aquaculture of salmon