MOFs are crystalline, porous materials with periodic network structures formed by the self-assembly of bridging organic ligands and metal clusters or ions. These possess the advantages of customizable dimensions and forms, as well as simple preparation and modification [
178]. However, the poor stability of MOFs in aqueous media, mainly due to decomposition and coalescence under physiological conditions, severely restricts their application in the biomedical field [
179,
180]. Fortunately, suitable metal–ligand pairs can be selected to avoid the decomposition of MOFs. More importantly, different functional building blocks can be chosen or designed, or other classes of functional groups can be introduced through postmodification methods, allowing for targeted property modulation to prepare MOF materials for specific applications [
181]. In addition, MOFs have been utilized as a strategy to overcome the cold chain. On the other hand, zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), a type of MOFs, is an efficient vaccine delivery system [
182,
183]. Imidazole, the basic structural unit of ZIF-8, is the smallest molecular weight molecule among the TLR agonists and can be modified to produce antagonist molecules or TLR-specific agonists, particularly for TLR-8 and TLR-7 [
184,
185]. ZIF-8 can be passively primed to the draining lymph node to activate the innate immune response at the injection site [
186]. ZIF-8 binds to TLRs in APCs in response to pH degradation that activates the MyD88-dependent pathway, which activates nuclear factor κB, produces type I IFN- β and IL-6, and increases CCR-7 and CD80 expression in APCs responding to the TLR [
186]. ZIF enables sustained antigen release (Fig.
5) [
187]. However, ZIF-8 is synthesized under harsh conditions and is not tolerated by viral antigens that are sensitive to pH or ionic strength. The key to solving this problem lies in balancing ZIF-8 crystal growth with viral integrity. Wang et al. [
188] successfully encapsulated inactivated FMDV in ZIF-8 with high encapsulation efficiency by lowering the pH of 2-methylimidazole solution to 9, adding cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, or increasing the dosage of Zn
2+ and achieved a substantial increase in its thermal stability by about 5 °C. Upon inoculation, the vaccine significantly increased specific antibody titers and promoted the differentiation of memory T cells. MOFs have been investigated in the development of veterinary nanovaccines against both viral and bacterial infections. For example, Ding et al. [
189] developed a nanovaccine using MOFs as a nanovaccine delivery system (Cap@ZIF-8-CpG) encapsulated with porcine circovirus type 2 antigen (Cap) and CpG immune enhancers. The vaccine induced a potent humoral immune response, resulting in a considerable increase in IgG antibody titers and increased cytokine secretion. Hu et al. [
190] prepared a nanovaccine based on the encapsulation of the outer membrane phosphoporin of
Klebsiella pneumoniae within ZIF-8, which induced significantly higher IgG antibody titers, a higher splenocyte proliferation index, and increased cytokine levels after subcutaneous immunization. This nanovaccine was comparable in preventive efficacy to a vaccine formulated using Freund’s adjuvant.