Improving immunogenicity of poultry vaccines by use of molecular adjuvants

SUMMARY: Currently, vaccination is still the main strategy to prevent important pathologies in the poultry industry. Furthermore, with the growing trend to develop vectorized or nucleic acid vaccines, new obstacles have emerged, for instance, the low immunogenicity this type of vaccine generates. As a consequence, the search for new, safe, and effective adjuvants has taken on greater importance. With the recent advances in avian immunology and genetics, new alternatives to traditional adjuvants have emerged, such as the use of immunomodulatory proteins with the potential to enhance the humoral and cellular immune response generated by vaccines. These recently developed types of adjuvants are named molecular adjuvants. This review summarizes the advances achieved so far using molecular adjuvants to prevent some of the critical diseases in the poultry industry.