Vaccines can prevent many millions of illnesses against
infectious diseases and save numerous lives every year. However, traditional
vaccines such as inactivated viral and live
attenuated vaccines cannot adapt to emerging pandemics due to their time-consuming development. With the global outbreak of the
COVID-19 epidemic, the virus continues to evolve and mutate, producing mutants with enhanced transmissibility and virulence; the rapid development of
vaccines against such emerging global pandemics becomes more and more critical. In recent years,
mRNA vaccines have been of significant interest in combating
emerging infectious diseases due to their rapid development and large-scale production advantages. However, their development still suffers from many hurdles such as their safety, cellular delivery, uptake, and response to their manufacturing, logistics, and storage. More efforts are still required to optimize the molecular designs of
mRNA molecules with increased
protein expression and enhanced structural stability. In addition, a variety of delivery systems are also needed to achieve effective delivery of
vaccines. In this review, we highlight the advances in
mRNA vaccines against various
infectious diseases and discuss the molecular design principles and delivery systems of associated
mRNA vaccines. The current state of the clinical application of
mRNA vaccine pipelines against various
infectious diseases and the challenge, safety, and protective effect of associated
vaccines are also discussed.