Meningococcal polysaccharide vaccines: A review

Polysaccharides produced by Neisseria meningitidis are pharmaceutically important molecules, and are the active components of vaccines against N. meningitidis serogroups A, C, W135 and Y. Effective vaccines based on capsular polysaccharide, polysaccharide conjugates and outer membrane vesicles have been developed for strains expressing capsular polysaccharides that define the sero groups A, C, Y and W135. However, conventional approaches to develop a vaccine for group B strains have been largely unsuccessful. This review focuses on the various aspects of fermentative production of meningococcal polysaccharide from N. meningitidis, methods of conjugation for improving the immunogenicity of polysaccharide vaccine, and efficient and cost effective methods for the purification of N. meningitidis capsular polysaccharide and outer membrane vesicles. In addition, different analytical techniques for the quantitative determination of polysaccharide vaccine and evaluation of structural integrity of conjugate vaccine have been described.